Lewis Hamilton nightmare worsens as F1 stewards hand out grid penalty for next race

Lewis Hamilton will serve a five-place grid penalty for the Italian Grand Prix. That is the stern punishment given to him by the Formula 1 stewards after he was found guilty of failing to slow for yellow flags on the reconnaissance laps before the Dutch Grand Prix.

Hamilton had already suffered a rough day, having been the first driver to crash out of the Zandvoort race. On lap 23, after some rain had fallen, he went off track and onto a slippery painted area of tarmac which led to him losing grip entirely.

The Ferrari understeered into the barrier and the front-right wheel snapped off the car, ending his race. Hamilton was running in seventh place at the time of the incident, meaning it cost him a shot at scoring points and led to a second result in a row where he failed to finish in the top 10.

Crucially, his DNF meant that he was also unable to serve any penalty that he would get. And one came his way after the race after he was accused and found guilty of failing to slow under yellow flags on the reconnaissance laps from the garage to the grid, before the race had even begun.

The matter was investigated after the race as the stewards wanted to get Hamilton's side of the story. But even after hearing from the Brit, they have decided to put two penalty points on his racing licence and, much more pertinently, a five-place grid drop for his next race.

The grid drop has been given because a time penalty would have been meaningless, given he failed to finish the Zandvoort race. In the official decision document, the stewards wrote: "Due to the nature of the track, the race director had informed all participants that the last corner before the pit lane would have double yellow flags waved.

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"This was to ensure the safety of those on the grid and in the pit lane. The regulations require that any driver passing through a double waved yellow flag marshalling sector ‘reduce speed significantly’. We looked through the available telemetry within the FIA system. We also requested the team to provide us with their telemetry data.

"All of this took some time and this decision was delayed as a result. In addition, Article 44.1 requires all drivers covering more than one reconnaissance lap to drive down the pit entry road at 'greatly reduced speed'. The data showed that the driver had entered the double yellow sector approximately 20kph less than his speed at the same point in practice sessions, had reduced throttle application in the order of 10 percent to 20 percent and had lifted and braked 70 metres earlier when entering the pit lane.

"We did not consider that a 20kph reduction in speed at a double waved yellow sector constituted reducing speed 'significantly'. We also did not consider the speed at which the driver entered the pit entry road as being at a 'greatly' reduced speed.

"The penalty guidelines for such an infringement would ordinarily attract a penalty of 10 grid positions at the next race. However, given that the driver had made an attempt to reduce his speed and to brake earlier, we took that into account as mitigating circumstances and imposed a five-grid place penalty."