Lewis Hamilton unhappy with stewards after being hit with sprint race penalty

Lewis Hamilton criticised Formula One’s stewards after he was penalised for colliding with Sergio Perez in Saturday’s rain-hit sprint race in Belgium.

Max Verstappen overcame Oscar Piastri’s impressive challenge to land another win ahead of Sunday’s main event in Spa-Francorchamps.

Piastri finished runner-up with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly a surprise third. Hamilton crossed the line in fourth, but was demoted to seventh after he was dealt a five-second penalty for making contact with Perez as they diced for position through Stavelot.

Hamilton has been handed a five-second penalty for causing a collision in that battle with Perez The Mexican has been told by his team to pit and retire the car #BelgianGP #F1Sprint pic.twitter.com/P4E9IlTbmg

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 29, 2023

Perez sustained race-ending damage in the accident – with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner accusing Hamilton of putting a big hole in the side of his driver’s machine.

But Hamilton, drawing on a famous quote from his childhood hero Ayrton Senna, said: “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.”

Lewis crosses the line P4 but will be classified P7 after his penalty. A strong drive from George sees him pick up the final point in P8 after a crazy Sprint race at Spa!