Lewis Hamilton has avoided a post-race penalty after a close call with a Ferrari mechanic during a pit-stop at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The seven-time world champion endured a frustrating day at Spa-Francorchamps as he was handed a five-second penalty early on for a collision with George Russell, who spun out on the first lap.
Then, during his pit-stop where he served such a penalty, Hamilton left his pit-box but ran over his own mechanic’s leg after being erroneously given the green light to rejoin the track.
Hamilton paused in a state of worry before continuing but the mechanic escaped significant injury. The FIA stewards said they’d investigate after the session under a potential “unsafe release”.
However, the decision came a few hours after Hamilton finished fourth that the team had been fined £25,500, of which £8,500 is suspended for 12 months, but they have not suffered a damaging sporting penalty.
“I damaged the car, then when they rebuilt it, they missed the suspension so the balance was completely different,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 afterwards.
“I was three-tenths slower; it was a domino effect from a mistake from myself. The team have been doing a great job with strategy, pit stops, we are continually improving our car, I think without the damage… we could have challenged for the win.
On the incident with the mechanic, Hamilton said: “The green light went, you’re looking ‘over here’ not ‘there’, it’s more on the team ultimately.
“When it happened, I noticed him, I stopped. Back when Kimi [Raikkonen] broke the leg, my heart really sank for a second, glad he’s OK.”
Asked about a difficult race as a whole, Hamilton admitted: “This weekend was unfortunate. I think it’s pretty great to see the performance improving the car constantly, more stuff in the pipeline to try and close that gap down.
“To be here and have the pace we had as a team is really encouraging. There’s still a long way to go, can’t afford weekends like this in terms of my performance yesterday [crash in practice], so am going to step it up in performance level next week.”
Despite finishing outside the top three, Russell’s retirement means Hamilton moves up to second in the championship standings and is Kimi Antonelli’s closest challenger, lying 45 points behind.
The next race is the Hungarian Grand Prix next weekend, the final round before the F1 summer break.
