Lewis Hamilton criticises race stewards for keeping him in penalty list – Formula 1 news
McLaren-Mercedes Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton thinks that the race stewards in the 2011 Formula 1 championship are unnecessarily penalising him for his overtaking moves.
Hamilton added that his incidents in the Monaco Grand Prix with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Williams Pastor Maldonado were not his mistake at all. However, the Brit added that the race stewards found him guilty on both occasions.
The Monaco Grand Prix weekend did not turn out as Hamilton would have expected.
He said, “You know you can't overtake here. Very, very rarely do you get an opportunity. Out of six races I've been to the stewards five times. It's a joke.”
Firstly in the qualifiers and then in the race, Hamilton thinks that Massa held his way and compromised his race. Hamilton tried to go inside Massa on the turn but the Brazilian squeezed him inside. Finally Massa lost the battle and one lap later, crashed
his car.
Previously in the qualifiers, Hamilton was lucky as he did not get time to set his flying lap time in the qualifiers after Sergio Perez crashed and the session was stopped. Before Perez’s crash, he did a lap which was again hindered by Massa.
Hamilton explained, “So it was just... and of course I get a penalty which is usual. He [Massa] held me up in qualifying and I got the penalty. He turned into me, and I got the penalty. I was quite a lot quicker than Massa.”
Apart from Massa, Hamilton had a separate incident with Williams’ Pastor Maldonado who will be kicking himself because he would have grabbed 10 points for his team. However, the Brit got 20 seconds added to his elapsed time when he and Maldonado crashed
in the final moments of the race. Only this time the added 20 seconds did not hurt his already worse weekend and he sustained his sixth position.
However, Hamilton thinks that it was not his fault and Maldonado turned way early to squeeze him.
Whatever the case might be, Hamilton’s aggressive driving style has already been criticised by his own team principal Martin Whitmarsh. However, it seems that the Brit only knows one way of driving.
The season continues with the Canadian Grand Prix in two weeks’ time.
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