Rogue Profile of Lewis Hamilton

“It was a terrible race,” he is quoted as saying by The Guardian. “I started second and I came eighth. I tried my best. I had four pit-stops and the tyres didn’t last. I stopped before everyone else when I could have stayed out for a couple of laps more. Then the wrong tyres were put on. I had the Option instead of the Prime. For the last stint I had an old Prime, which didn’t last, and I had to pit – it was very poor strategy but there’s nothing I can do.”

Hamilton was penalized with a drive through penalty for causing an avoidable accident but after the race the British driver firmly put the blame with Massa accusing him of turning in early.

Hamilton, not wanting a further collision reacted by slowing down to see what Sutil would do, however this drop in speed caused Alguersuari to run into the back of him and in turn Petrov to run into Alguersuari. Both Alguersuari and Petrov made heavy contact with the barriers on the outside of the turn and the following cars picked their way through the wreckage.

The leaders had been very lucky not to crash in this incident but both Petrov and Alguersuari were instantly out.

The safety car was deployed to clean up the mess but it soon became apparent the Petrov had not exited his car. With a lack of sensation in his legs the track medics needed to extract the driver in his seat and the race was red flagged on lap 72 to enable this to happen safely.

The drivers return to the grid where Hamilton had repair work on his car. The race resumed on lap 73 after one additional lap behind the safety car.

Maldonado came of worse and ended up in the barriers at st Devote.

The stewards did not take kindly to this maneuver, much like the one he did on Massa and handed him a 20 second penalty. This ultimately did not affect Lewis’ position in the final race results.

“You know what? Out of six races, I’ve been to the stewards five times,” a furious Hamilton told the BBC. .

He continued, “It’s a joke. It’s an absolute frickin’ joke. You can’t overtake here and very rarely do you get an opportunity. I went up the inside of Massa and the guy turned so early and just turned into me, so I tried to go over the kerb to avoid him and we’re stuck together, so it was just…and of course I get the penalty, which is usual.

“He held me up in qualifying and I got the penalty. He turned into me (today) in and I got the penalty. Then I went up the inside of Maldonado, and you can see on the screen that he turned a good car length too early to stop me from overtaking him, and crashed into me. It’s just ridiculous, man. These drivers are frickin’ ridiculous, it’s stupid.”

However, Hamilton did not stop there, he continue to remark (part jokingly) why he received the attention from the stewards:

“Maybe it’s because I’m black – that’s what Ali G says. I don’t know. It’s not affecting my confidence as a driver. The sport is… people want to see motor racing, want to see overtaking, and you get done for trying to overtake, you get done for trying to put on a show, you get done for trying to make a move.

“Fair play – if I really feel that I’ve just gone too late and hit someone, I’ll put my hand up and realise, okay, I really have caused and incident and I’ve been the stupid one. But it’s not the case, but yeah.

“I’ll just keep my mouth shut and try and enjoy the rest of the season, which I’m sure is going to be an interesting one, but as you can see he (Vettel) is walking away with it. It’s never too late but it’s not looking great, I must say.”

The result was that he was dropped to 9th place on the grid.

Schumacher was less than impressed after Hamilton commented “I won’t speak to him about it – I don’t want to waste my time or my breath.” To which Schumacher responded,
“I don’t recall this, and I think it wouldn’t make sense.” Mostly in your old age you don’t remember allot and also allot does not make much sense, but in this case Schumacher is right, it does not make sense.

But not content with the Schumacher repost, Hamilton went after Team Toro Rosso remarking that they too had blocked him: “That kind of thing shouldn’t happen because they are not supposed to be a sister team, are they?” Hamilton said. “Definitely in the last race there was some of that … all of a sudden moving in my way, which caused a bigger gap, the gap that I closed to Sebastian and I then lost. They let him past and held me up for the next couple of corners.

“If that continues to happen, some penalties should probably be handed out. I won’t complain but I have mentioned it to my team so it is for them to approach the FIA to make sure the stewards are aware of it.”

Hamilton was placed under investigation for this incident.

Shoved Webber into a spin at Turn 2.

The result was that Button and Hamilton collided with each other putting Hamilton into the pit wall. Button’s car was not damaged but Hamilton’s car was too damaged to continue in the race. Hamilton limped around the track stopping his car in the outside of turn 5 (despite going past many an oppertunity to park up safely). As a result, the Safety Car was brought out to clear up the mess.

Button was quoted on the radio as saying to his team “What is he doing!?!?!”. Quite.

The race stewards investigated this incident after the race but no punishments were handed out.

Hamilton was then placed under investigation and was given a drive through for “forcing another car from the track”. The penalty was handed out on lap 54.

Eventually Hamilton climbed free from his Mclaren and, unusually, accepted blame for the incident. Kobayashi was left with no where to go but to the grass. The Japanese driver held his ground and Hamilton paid the price for not giving other drivers enough room.

Hamilton received a warning for his driving behavior from the stewards

The loose parts were in the middle of the track and the safety car was brought out to clear up the mess.

Mclaren claimed that the needed to stop the car on the track to ensure that could provide a fuel sample to the FIA, post qualifying. As a result Mclaren were not able to allow Hamilton to return to the pits after his qualifying run.

The stewards disagreed with Mclaren, that they were force to do this in order to provide the fuel sample stating “As the amount of fuel put into the car is under the complete control of the Competitor the Stewards
cannot accept this as a case of force majeure.”

Hamilton was punished and disqualified from pole position. He started the race in 24th.