Hamilton hit with five-place grid penalty for Italian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton has been given a five-place grid penalty for Ferrari’s home race at Monza after he was found guilty of a yellow flag breach prior to the Dutch Grand Prix.

Hamilton crashed out of Sunday’s race after losing control of his car at Zandvoort’s Turn 3 amid drops of rain, before team mate Charles Leclerc collided with Mercedes rival Kimi Antonelli through the same section and made it a double DNF for the Scuderia.

Now, ahead of Ferrari’s second home event of the season, it has been confirmed that Hamilton will lose five positions from wherever he qualifies next time out – due to a transgression relating to double waved yellow flags during the pre-race reconnaissance laps in the Netherlands.

“Due to the nature of the track, the Race Director had informed all participants that the last corner before the pit lane would have double yellow flags waved,” read a report from the stewards. “This was to ensure the safety of those on the grid and in the pit lane.

“The regulations require that any driver passing through a double waved yellow flag marshalling sector ‘reduce speed significantly…’.

“We looked through the available telemetry within the FIA system. We also requested the team to provide us with their telemetry data. All of this took some time and this decision was delayed as a result.

“In addition, Article 44.1 requires all drivers covering more than one reconnaissance lap to drive down the pit entry road at ‘greatly reduced speed’.

“The data showed that the driver had entered the double yellow sector approximately 20kph less than his speed at the same point in practice sessions, had reduced throttle application in the order of 10% to 20% and had lifted and braked 70 metres earlier when entering the pit lane.

“We did not consider that a 20kph reduction in speed at a double waved yellow sector constituted reducing speed ‘significantly’. We also did not consider the speed at which the driver entered the pit entry road as being at a ‘greatly’ reduced speed.

“The penalty guidelines for such an infringement would ordinarily attract a penalty of 10 grid positions at the next race. However, given that the driver had made an attempt to reduce his speed and to brake earlier, we took that into account as mitigating circumstances and imposed a five grid place penalty.”