FIA points to Ferrari for the Lewis Hamilton incident during Bahrain GP practice as they decide on the penalty.
Lewis Hamilton won’t be getting a grid penalty for the Bahrain Grand Prix after the FIA found Ferrari partly to blame for him blocking Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto during practice.
Hamilton slowed down on the racing line near turn 8 in FP2 at Sepang, which caused Bortoleto to try overtaking him on the outside but had to swerve inside instead. Luckily, the speeds were safe enough to avoid a collision, but Bortoleto was clearly annoyed. Over the team radio, he said, “What the —- is this guy doing, man? He sees me coming and just keeps blocking.”
Normally, blocking like this could lead to a penalty, but Ferrari showed damage to Hamilton’s right mirror—which you can actually see on Bortoleto’s onboard footage. Plus, Hamilton said he wasn’t warned that Bortoleto was approaching fast. Taking that into account, the FIA just gave Hamilton a warning.
However, the FIA wasn’t happy with Ferrari, saying they should have warned Hamilton about faster cars coming up, especially since his mirror was damaged. Because of this, Ferrari got fined €10,000.
Hamilton’s race engineer is Carlo Santi, and sometimes team boss Frederic Vasseur talks to the drivers too. The FIA said Ferrari knew about the damaged mirror but didn’t give Hamilton proper warnings, which made it harder to spot other cars.
This decision is a relief for Hamilton and not too tough on Ferrari, especially considering how well they did in practice at Sepang. The Malaysian track replaced Bahrain on the calendar but will still use the Bahrain Grand Prix name. Hamilton’s had mixed luck there—he’s won once out of 11 races and scored five poles, but had some tough moments like a big engine failure in 2016.
In the latest practice session, Leclerc was fastest with a time of 1:37.528. Hamilton came in fifth at 1:37.833, just behind Isack Hadjar, Lando Norris, and Max Verstappen.
The Bahrain Grand Prix will start at 8am UK time on Sunday, with qualifying happening on Saturday at 9am.