F1 News
Palmer: "The penalties in Russia are not Hamilton's fault"
- GPblog.com
Lewis Hamilton saw his chances of victory in Russia go up in smoke before the race had even started. The Briton made two practice starts in a place where he was not supposed to, which gave him a ten-second time penalty. Originally he was also given two penalty points on his licence, but these were eventually taken by the FIA.
At the end of the race, Hamilton said that he suspected the stewards of trying to stop him, but according to Jolyon Palmer this was not the case. "The reality is that Hamilton and Mercedes simply broke the rules both times. In Monza they were punished because the pitlane was closed and then Antonio Giovinazzi received the same penalty", the former F1 driver explains in his BBC column.
Hamilton got an advantage
"I do have sympathy for Hamilton, because it is not his fault in either case. His team stopped him in Monza and in Sochi Hamilton asked if he could start in another place and then he got permission". However, according to Palmer, Hamilton himself also made mistakes. "The problem is that Hamilton went a lot further towards the end of the pit lane than the team expected.
Palmer knows why Hamilton had asked to go further towards the end of the pit lane to make his practice start. "The practice start spot is there to give the drivers an opportunity to practice starting. Every driver practises there, so there is a lot of rubber on the tyres. The fact is that Lewis continued his practice start in the pit lane, where there was little rubber. This allowed him to get a better feeling with the situation at the real start, because that stretch of asphalt is already a lot more similar to where he had to start," concludes Palmer.