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Lewis Hamilton comfortably led Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix (and won by Pierre Gasly) at Monza until Kevin Magnussen’s accident at Haas completely changed the race for the Briton.
As soon as the safety car entered the track to collect the Dane’s car, the race director decided to close the pitlane to safely remove Haas, as the American team car was close to the pit entrance. Unaware of the shutdown, Lewis entered, violated the rules imposed at the site, and was penalized with a 10-second stop and pit. Mercedes explained in detail what happened from the team’s point of view.
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– It was a strange sequence of events that we could have detected earlier. The decisions made were unusual, but they were absolutely within the rules. A Haas was parked on the right, near the entrance, inside Parabolica, and a single yellow flag was displayed. Eleven seconds later, the security car was activated. As soon as the security car was started they closed the entrance to the pit lane with a red flag, but it was not exactly red, there were two yellow crossed; One of the strategists yelled into the radio as we were entering the pit lane. There was confusion. We couldn’t see the signs and this is just a sequence of events that ended Lewis’s career. I’m not happy, but you have to know how to take it – says Toto Wolff, head of the German team.
Although the team was physically unable to see that the pitlane was closed, Wolff said that another way to know the closure would be to look at an internal system of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), something unusual to do at this time when cars start to get to the pits. In addition to Hamilton, Antonio Giovinazzi was sanctioned for the same incident.
– From the pit, you cannot see these double yellows and, if the pilot does not see them either, which I think is the absolute truth, the only way to see that the pitlane has closed is on page four of the Communications System of the FIA. Nobody looks at that page when the safety car starts, the driver is about to enter the pits, and everything is concentrated around the stop. It was bad luck, I would say, and a very unusual decision to close the pitlane.
Although he lost the victory, the damage was not that great for leader Lewis Hamilton in the pursuit of his seventh title. That’s because Verstappen (second in the table until the end of the race) dropped out and earned no points. And Bottas was only fifth after a bad start, but he earned enough points to retake second place in the Drivers’ Championship. Hamilton, who ended up being the last 26 of the penultimate, continued to climb the peloton to reach seventh, guaranteeing himself an extra point on the fastest lap.
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– Honestly, I didn’t see those signs, so I take responsibility for that. It will serve as a lesson. Finishing seventh and still getting the fastest lap, there are still some good points left, considering I didn’t think it was possible 26 seconds from the last car. I accept (the punishment) and am grateful that Max did not score any points. So today was not such a big loss – analyzes the Mercedes driver.
