Expert judgement is in after stewards penalise Lewis Hamilton with grid penalty

Lewis Hamilton had little option to avoid the incident which cost him a grid penalty, an expert judgement has claimed.

The Mercedes driver will start the F1 Dutch Grand Prix from 14th on the grid after stewards penalised him with a three-place grid drop.

He was accused of impeding Sergio Perez during qualifying.

Sky Sports’ Anthony Davidson assessed the incident: “As Perez was called to the weighbridge, as Hamilton comes [past him] faster, his hand goes up in disgust.”

Davidson rewatched replays and explained: “Lewis was on the outside of the corner. He knows Perez is coming up.

“But where do you go? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

“If you go to the inside, you’re on the racing line. You can’t stop the car on the track.

“Lewis was in a predicament. He was in the way, and tried his best to get out of the way. But unfortunately ends up on the racing line, on the corner.

“From my experience, I wouldn’t have known where to put my car in that situation.

“I really do think it was bad luck that Checo found himself in that situation.

“For Lewis? Apart from throwing his car off the track and driving through the gravel, or just physically stopping, I really don’t know where else he could have gone, in that moment.

“It’s a strange corner, down at Turn 9.”

Martin Brundle, before the stewards delivered their verdict, said: “Impeding is impeding. I think he can demonstrate that he did his best to get out of the way.

“Did Perez need to lift off? Is another argument that Mercedes will be making.

“Red Bull will make the argument that he was impeded.”

Hamilton claimed “the timing was bad” but Perez predicted he would receive a punishment.

Ultimately the stewards opted to penalise Hamilton.

They said: "The driver of Car 44, being on an in lap, was informed by the team that Car 11 was approaching on a fast lap when he entered Turn 8. He then drove off line at the exit of Turn 8 with the intention to give way for Car 11.

“However, when Car 11 arrived, Car 44 had already entered Turn 9 and drove back towards the racing line at the exit of Turn 9, thereby clearly impeding Car 11.

"The Stewards determine that, whilst there has been appropriate warning by the team and albeit the driver tried to move out of the way, he could have slowed down more in order not to impede the other car and therefore consider the impeding to be unnecessary in the sense of the regulations. Therefore a grid drop is applied in line with previous decisions."