Lewis Hamilton has avoided a grid penalty for Sunday’s Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix after a hearing from the stewards about two incidents in the final stage of qualifying.
Reigning world champion Hamilton qualified second on the grid for the 2020 season opener, narrowly losing to teammate Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes in the fight for pole position.
But the stewards confirmed, two hours after the end of qualifying, that Hamilton was under investigation for failing to slow down the yellow flags and for exceeding track limits on an earlier lap of Q3.
Yellow flags were shown after a lap for Bottas ahead of Hamilton on the track, and the Briton continued to improve his time by a tenth of a second.
Commissioners confirmed after meeting with Hamilton that no further action would be taken on the yellow flag violation after discovering that there had been a confusion with the lights on the Marshal panel.
“The driver mentioned that a green light panel passed at Turn 5,” the commissioners’ report read.
“The video confirmed that there have been yellow flags and green light panels at the same time and therefore conflicting signals were shown to the driver.
“With this in mind, the Stewards decide to take no further action.”
Hamilton said at the post-qualification press conference that he did not see the yellow flags displayed for Bottas’ turn.
“I got around the corner, went up to power and thought that Valtteri might just be going wide and back on track later,” Hamilton said.
“I was looking for gravel on the track and a car on the track, but there was nothing there, so I continued.
“Then I saw when I was entering, I think it was at turn 6 that Valtteri was much more to the left.
“A puff powder happened quite quickly and quite large.”
The stewards found Hamilton guilty of exceeding the limits of the track with his previous Q3 lap, meaning the time was removed, but since it was slower than his best time, it is unrelated to his starting position.
Therefore, Hamilton will keep second on the grid alongside Bottas, with Max Verstappen and Lando Norris starting from third and fourth behind.
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