Hamilton disappointed over Bottas incident

Much like Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton wasn’t impressed with the race stewards in Brazil either.

Both drivers were handed drive through penalties during the Brazilain Grand Prix and although television replays show that Massa was indeed at fault for cutting the white line on pit entry which was illegal, Felipe Massa still verbally attacked the race stewards after the Grand Prix.

Hamilton’s penalty was much less clear cut however.

Lewis Hamilton was adjudged to have caused a collision when his car made contact with the Williams of Valtteri Bottas.

The crash forced Bottas to retire from the race, while Hamilton suffered a rear puncture.

After the Brit had recovered his Mercedes to the pits, he was immediately put under investigation by the race stewards and was eventually handed a drive through penalty for the incident. ‘Was that my fault?’ a shocked Hamilton said over the team radio after being told he needed to serve a penalty.

Television replays clearly showed that whilst Hamilton slightly moved right towards Bottas, he had still left the Williams room on the track and had not forced him off the road.

The fact that Bottas was also a lap behind Hamilton, confused the 2008 Formula One World Champion after the race.

‘I don’t really know what happened, I need to watch it on TV, but I’m a bit gutted that I lost so many places for the team, I was catching Fernando [Alonso in third] so I would at least have had a chance of a fight with Fernando.’ he told Sky Sports.

‘He couldn’t have gone round the outside, plus he was a lap down, For me I was thinking ‘I’m trying to catch Fernando’ so if he goes past I might lose time to Fernando.

‘In hindsight perhaps I should have just let him pass because obviously we would have avoided that incident. He was quite quick, he had much, much newer tyres than me, he’d just pitted. So that’s something we’ll learn for the future.’

Bottas added: ‘I didn’t know that I was one lap behind him, I thought we were racing.