Penalty Verdict On Russell Crash Angers Hamilton As Surprise Stewards Decision On Leclerc Issued

Penalty Verdict On Russell Crash Angers Hamilton As Surprise Stewards Decision On Leclerc Issued 

Hello everybody, hope you're all doing well. Today's video I'm talking about Lewis Hamilton just wanted to getting a penalty for his crash with George Russell in Belgium, as well as the stewards verdict on Charles Leclerc. So let's start with Hamilton. 

Now on the opening lap of the Belgian Grand Prix, Hamilton has a good run on Russell and it looked like Russell was struggling with power and on the run down to turn five, Hamilton got ahead. 

However, Russell was late on the brakes and went around the outside of Hamilton. However, mid corner the two drivers made a bit of contact and this sent Russell spinning round into the gravel and out of the Grand Prix. Now as unfortunate this was for Russell, it looked like a racing incident and Russell himself called it a racing incident.

 However, Hamilton was given a five second time penalty for the crash. However, Hamilton also feels that the crash was a racing incident and insisted it did not warrant a five second time penalty handed to him by the stewards. 

Hamilton said as quoted by GP Blog, "I was in the position where George obviously looked like he lost power and then he swooped around the outside and just had a small coming together. 

I got damaged and unfortunately, really unfortunate to see his race constrained because you never want to see that and then in the race I did the best job I could with the damage that I had and then also the penalty. I think it was a racing incident so I don't think that should be a penalty but it is what it is. I'll text him later on because we don't get to see each other. Everyone rushes out of here. I was thinking that's the last thing you ever want to do is come together with your teammate or with your old team who you highly respect. 

So why was Hamilton penalized? Well, the stewards verdict said, "During the corner car 44 experienced understeer and despite attempting to avoid car 63 by applying corrective steering made contact with the right hand side of car 63 with its left front wheel. The stewards determined that car 63 remains within the available racing room and that the collision was caused by car 44 being unable to maintain sufficient separation.

The stewards recognized several mitigating circumstances. Car 44 acknowledged the presence of car 63, attempted to leave appropriate racing room, and made a genuine attempt to avoid contact. The collision resulted from a loss of front-end grip rather than from an aggressive or deliberate maneuver. In addition, the incident occurred on the opening lap where reduced grip and compressed racing conditions are recognized, and it was those mitigating circumstances that stopped the penalty being 10 seconds and instead being 5 seconds. 

Now, later on in the Grand Prix, Hamilton's teammate Charles Leclerc was involved in a totally different incident at the same part of the track. However, he did not get a penalty. Basically, Oscar Piastri was on the outside of Leclerc entering the com when the Ferrari appeared to move towards the McLaren entering the braking phase leading to contact and damage to Piastri's car. 

Now, this looked like a clear penalty for Leclerc. I mean, it looked like he moved in the braking zone on Piastri, and this caused damage to Piastri's car. But, the stewards decided against penalizing Leclerc with them saying in their verdict, "On the approach to turn five, car 81 moved to overtake car 16 on the outside. 

Although car 81 has achieved some over that with car 16, its front axle was not ahead of the front axle of car 16. From the stewards' perspective, there was no realistic possibility of car 81 completing the overtake from that position. The stewards also determined that car 16 did not deliberately force car 81 off the edge of the track. Instead, car 16 followed the normal racing line before the entry to turn five by moving slightly to the left to open up the corner. 

As a result of both cars' positions, side-to-side contact occurred between them." And yeah, the stewards decided not to penalize Leclerc. What do you think of the decisions? Let me know in the comments below. But that's going to be the video from me.