Lewis Hamilton said the current state of the Formula 1 rules was to blame for the "dangerous" incident which saw him impede a rival on track in Baku. Liam Lawson was left furious with Hamilton after coming across the slow-moving Ferrari towards the end of a flying lap, jumping on the radio to blast the Brit's "so dangerous" positioning.
Hamilton Defends His Actions
But Hamilton came out swinging in the media pen afterwards, defending himself and saying the FIA's rules and engine formula were responsible for causing the near-miss. He said: "Naturally, it's never an intention of any driver to get in the way of anybody. Basically, with the way that the rules are set, when you do an out lap and when you come around the last corner to start your lap, you have no 'K' – no battery deployment – you just have the ICE, basically.
"So it's something like 500 brake horsepower less, but there are no guidelines of how big of a gap you have to understand the closing speed that you're going to have with the guy that's on their lap. When I was four seconds ahead, I thought, 'This looks big enough'. So I got on the power and once I got into turn 18, the speed deficit was huge and there was nowhere I could go at that point."
Stewards' Decision
"It was unfortunate, but it gives us good guidelines as to what to change, potentially, for tomorrow. But that's not the drivers' fault – that's what the FIA did with their decisions at the beginning of the year and we're trying to manages as best we can, as drivers, on track in finding the right gap and not getting in the way of people."
The stewards investigated the incident and hauled both Hamilton and Lawson in for a hearing. After listening to both sides of the story, and more than two hours of deliberation, they came to the conclusion that Hamilton had indeed impeded the Racing Bulls. However, they did not think it was sufficiently dangerous to impose a grid penalty, and so the seven-time world champion was reprimanded.
