Hamilton disagrees with Vettel penalty

Lewis Hamilton returned at a press conference to the penalty imposed on Sebastian Vettel after the collision between the Ferrari driver and Valtteri Bottas. The Briton disagrees with this sanction considered too weak.

Published on 25/06/2018 à 13:15

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The first lap of the French Grand Prix was marked by the first corner incident involving Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) and Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes), the first harpooning the second at the start of the S de la Verrerie.

A maneuver which caused a 5″ penalty at his second stop for the German, already forced to stop at the end of the first loop to change his damaged front wing. But a sanction that Lewis Hamilton, winner of the event, considered it insufficient.

« We all come into turn 1 as hard as we can, comments the Briton. And in the end, when someone destroys your race because of a mistake and the sanction is just a "slap on the wrist", they can come back and finish in front the pilot he released, it doesn't weigh much.

Ultimately, he shouldn't really be able to finish ahead of him, because he took him out of the race. But that’s the choice that was made. »

Winner ahead Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari), Hamilton takes advantage of Vettel's fifth place to regain control of the championship with 14 units ahead of the Ferrari driver before this weekend's Austrian meeting.

Discover the full report and analysis of the French Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondents at Paul Ricard, in issue 2171 of AUTOhebdo, available this evening in digital version, and this Wednesday on newsstands.