F1 News: FIA Reveals Reason Behind Lewis Hamilton's Penalty

The sprint race at Spa Francorchamps among all the reasons, would be remembered for the incident that forced Sergio Perez to retire from the race after Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes collided with his Red Bull RB19.

The incident occurred at turns 14 and 15 when Hamilton was trying to pass through. The impact was such that the incident damaged the RB19's floor and the tire. It also created a large hole on the sidepod.

FIA Stewards investigated the incident and gave out a controversial verdict that attracted criticism from fans and Formula 1 personalities like Martin Brundle who called it "harsh". Hamilton was charged with a five-second penalty that brought his position down from P4 to P7. In addition, two points were also added to his license.

To avoid speculation, the governing body has provided a reason for the penalty. The official verdict states:

“Hamilton was attempting to pass Perez on the inside at Turn 15."

“While Perez was giving little room on the inside for Hamilton, Hamilton drove onto the kerb and subsequently understeered into Perez in the wet conditions."

“The Stewards consider that Hamilton was predominantly at fault for causing a collision and order a 5-second penalty.”

Meanwhile, fans have gone to the extent of calling out steward Derek Warwick a racist, who was a part of the panel of stewards that awarded the punishment to Hamilton. The reason for the accusation comes from 2016 when supposedly, Warwick called Max Verstappen "The next great white hope." However, the former British Racing Driver denied using the word "white" when he explained his version of the story.

Hamilton on the other hand seems to not be bothered losing three positions since winning is all that matters to him. Speaking on the incident, he quoted Ayrton Senna:

“As Ayrton said, if you no longer go for a gap that exists, then you are no longer a racing driver.

That is what I did. And when I watched it back it feels like a racing incident to me.

The conditions were tricky out there. We are doing our best and it wasn’t intentional. He was slow and I went up the inside and I was more than half-a-car length alongside.

I feel like we should not be deterred from racing. It would have been nice to finish fourth but I don’t really care about finishing fourth, I want to win.”