Analyst Martin Brundle believes that his compatriot Lewis Hamilton was fortunate to receive only a five-place grid penalty following the Dutch GP. The British driver was penalized for speeding under double yellow flags and will serve this penalty during the Italian GP – the home race of his team, Ferrari. ‘He was lucky it wasn’t a ten-place grid penalty,’ concludes Brundle.
Lewis Hamilton already knows a day before the Italian GP qualification that he will not start from the top five at Ferrari’s home race. The Brit received a five-place grid penalty in Zandvoort after the race for speeding while double yellow flags were being waved. The incident occurred forty minutes before the start of the Dutch GP, but the penalty was only handed out to Hamilton four hours after the Dutch race.
Lucky Break
For the Ferrari driver himself, the grid penalty came as a ‘shock’, he said in Monza. Martin Brundle, former driver and current analyst, however, sees Hamilton as a lucky man. “It was a clear penalty,” Brundle tells Sky Sports F1. “Lewis actually broke two rules, considering also the (too high) speed at which he entered the pit lane in Zandvoort. I think that penalty should have been imposed during the race, so they would have had the chance to serve it. But the two mistakes do not cancel each other out. I think the team has to take some of the responsibility.”
Yet, the Brit also somewhat defends his compatriot. “If you read the sports regulations, the technical regulations, the international sports code, and also the race director’s notes for a particular weekend, you can’t expect the drivers to remember all of that,” concludes Brundle. “We also struggle with that. However, his team should have warned him. They shouldn’t complain too much about the penalty. They were lucky it wasn’t a ten-place grid penalty.”
