Lewis Hamilton punishment causes confusion as star slams incident | F1 | Sport

Lando Norris triumphed at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday to secure his first victory of the season. The reigning world champion currently occupies fifth place in the drivers’ championship.

Kimi Antonelli is currently leading the race for this year’s title, having claimed victory in six of the 11 F1 races held so far. Lewis Hamilton saw his opportunity to close the gap on the Italian dashed after being handed a contentious penalty for exceeding the speed limit in the pit lane. Elsewhere, Norris had engaged in a fierce battle with his McLaren colleague Oscar Piastri for the lead during the opening stages. However, Piastri’s chances of victory were hampered by a clash with Carlos Sainz. Here is a summary of some of the key F1 talking points emerging from the Hungarian GP.

Lewis Hamilton punishment causes confusion

Sky Sports F1 pundit Anthony Davidson expressed his confusion over Lewis Hamilton’s penalty for pit lane speeding during the Hungarian Grand Prix. The infringement took place as Hamilton was making his way through the pit lane for his second tyre change.

Race stewards determined that Hamilton had been travelling at 80.1kph in the pit lane, where the maximum permitted speed is 80kph. As a result, he was handed a five-second time penalty, which demoted him to fifth position, having initially crossed the line fourth but just four seconds clear of his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc. Yet footage from the camera mounted above Hamilton’s helmet seemed to indicate he had activated his pit limiter button at the appropriate moment.

“I’ve looked at this so many times and I can’t work out why he gets a penalty,” Davidson said during the Sky Sports broadcast. “For me, he slows down sufficiently well. We’ve got this marker board on the left-hand side that stipulates the 80kph speed limit. I don’t see that [speeding].

“Let’s have a look at the exit. Obviously knew he was under time pressure to get out in that race with [Kimi] Antonelli. Again, for me, it sounds like he releases the pit lane button on the line itself. This guy knows what he’s doing when it comes to white lines and when to press the button.

“Maybe there was just an error when he was a bit too close to the line on the actual speed of the car and they were just pinged by that. Who knows? Strange that it only happened that one time. I don’t have enough data here and I can only go by the sound of when he is pressing that button. For me, it looked totally fine on the way in and on the way out.”

Oscar Piastri slams ‘unacceptable’ incident

Oscar Piastri criticised Carlos Sainz following their collision during the Hungarian GP. The McLaren driver was locked in battle with team-mate Lando Norris for the lead when he came upon Sainz and Fernando Alonso, who were both a lap behind.

Sainz tried to pass Alonso but was unable to finish the manoeuvre before moving across Piastri, resulting in contact. Stewards found Sainz at fault for the incident on lap 39, with the Williams driver handed a five-second penalty, while Piastri was later forced to retire from the race owing to a gearbox problem.

“I couldn’t believe what happened,” Piastri said after the race. “Getting crashed into by a lapped car is never one of the things you expect that can go wrong in your race. And today it was.

“I don’t really care if he didn’t see me and the fact that he didn’t and no one told him, or there was a lack of complete awareness, is unacceptable.”