Lewis Hamilton’s recent penalty record is not at all worrying to one former Formula 1 driver. Hamilton has picked up four penalties in his last three race weekends which have hampered his efforts and resulted in the seven-time world champion heading into the summer break 50 points adrift of championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
It began at Silverstone where his attempt to win the British Grand Prix again was made difficult right at the beginning when he was penalised for jumping the start. In the next race, at Spa-Francorchamps, he picked up a five-second penalty for another first-lap incident, this time tagging George Russell and sending his former team-mate into the gravel.
And then two more penalties followed over the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend to end the first half of the season. He was made to serve a three-place grid penalty after impeding Oscar Piastri during qualifying, and was penalised again during the race itself when sensors in the pit lane picked him up speeding – by just 0.1kph.
While so many penalties in such a short space of time is clearly far from ideal, former F1 racer Christian Danner pointed out there is no pattern among the offences themselves and so he is not concerned about the run of punishments being a sign of any deeper problem.
Speaking to Express Sport, via OLBG, Danner said of Hamilton: “He made quite a few errors last year, which were due to the fact that he did not really understand the systems properly and everything, and was a bit behind what was going on. That is not the case this year.
“The fact that he overshot the braking into the pit lane, which I am told was the problem, that is just a normal mistake when you are pushing it over the limit. It is not good, but it can happen. But it does not give us a reason to say, ‘He is making another mistake, another mistake’.
“Causing a collision, the one with George in Spa, I would say it was a collision and he caused it. But a few years ago, it might have been a racing accident because it was still after the start, and a lot of cars in the same corner at the same time. Yes, it was okay, he got the penalty, and all these penalties are very soft penalties. A five-second penalty at the end of the Hungarian Grand Prix was bad because he lost a position, but I wouldn’t say that it indicates something at all, no.”
Hamilton is second in the drivers’ championship heading into the summer shutdown, having secured his first Grand Prix podiums and victory as a Ferrari driver earlier in the season. In order to close the gap when racing resumes, the Brit admitted he needs to “try to make sure I don’t give them any reason to penalise me”.