FIA explain why Lewis Hamilton was not punished for Lap 1 sprint clash
Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso were critical but Lewis Hamilton escaped punishment
Lewis Hamilton escaped punishment from the FIA for an incident in the F1 Miami Grand Prix sprint race.
Hamilton’s manoeuvre down the inside of Fernando Alonso on the first lap of the Miami sprint forced the Aston Martin driver into his teammate, Lance Stroll.
Stroll then clattered Lando Norris, forcing them both into early retirements. Alonso, with a puncture, dropped down the order.
But Hamilton was let off after an FIA investigation.
Their reasoning explained: “The Stewards reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video and in-car video evidence and determined that Cars 14, 18, 44 and 4 [Alonso, Stroll, Hamilton and Norris, ed.] collided when they were navigating Turn 1 of Lap 1.
“The collision resulted in damage to Car 14, 18 [Alonso and Stroll] and caused Car 4 [Norris] to retire.
“From the video evidence, it appeared that there were at least three collisions that occurred – the first between Cars 14 & 18 and then between Car 44 [Hamilton] and Car 14 and finally between Car 18 and Car 4.
“While it appeared to us that the incidents began with Cars 14 & 18, the sudden and fast arrival of Car 44 contributed to the various collisions.
“However, we were not able to identify one or more drivers wholly or predominantly to blame for the various collisions or any one of them.
“Also keeping in mind that this was in Turn 1 of Lap 1 where greater latitude is given to drivers for incidents, we took no further action.”
McLaren’s Norris blamed Hamilton, though.
“It’s obvious. Lewis dived up the inside and caused the incident,” Norris told F1TV.
“Nothing I could do about that.”
Alonso controversially complained that Hamilton was not penalised by the FIA because “he’s not Spanish”.
Alonso arrived in Miami with a gripe over FIA stewarding after he was given a 10-second time penalty in the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix.
He insisted that he did not try to overtake Esteban Ocon in Miami for fear of being punished again by the stewards.
And Alonso ended his criticism by sarcastically labelling the sprint race “a free practice” session.
Hamilton finished the sprint race in P8 but dropped to P16 due to a 20-second time penalty for speeding in the pitlane.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
