F1 News: Toto Wolff Says Unfair Impeding Caused Lewis Hamilton To Stay Out Of Q3

As per Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, impeding has become quite a big issue on the track during qualifying and the governing body doesn't seem to care about it since nobody gets penalized. The same problem prevented Lewis Hamilton from going into Q3 and caused him to start from the 13th spot on the grid at Zandvoort

However, Hamilton's teammate George Russell carried some great pace during qualifying and managed to go into Q3, proving that the W14 is capable of churning out some good numbers. Russell managed to start from third on the grid.

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Wolff claimed that Hamilton carried great pace too but the impeding problem cost him Q3. Speaking to GPblog, he said:

“I think Hamilton had really good pace all weekend and it's really painful to see that because of traffic, you're not making yourself go into Q3. I think also the impeding is pretty ugly to look at. I don't know whether it's become a bit of a pattern because people simply don't care or not get penalised. I mean if I see the impeding from Alonso in Q1 that's a clear impeding, and there was no further investigation. That cost him Q3."

Thankfully, Wolff not only pointed out the problem but also offered a solution to tackle it. He explained:

"I think the answer is to penalise. If you know you don't go to prison when you cheat the tax, you cheat the tax. I don't understand why these things are not penalised. There was a clear impeding with some drivers in Q1 and Tsunoda didn't move from the dry line. You can say he dived on the inside and it didn't look like it cost much, but going from a dry line into a wet line and back into a dry line cost him. I think a tenth would have put him into Q3."