Hamilton hit with three-place Monaco GP grid drop for blocking Verstappen in Qualifying

Lewis Hamilton has joined the list of penalised drivers for the Monaco Grand Prix after the stewards determined that he impeded Max Verstappen during Qualifying.

Hamilton was shown on television footage to be moving slowly at the entry to Massenet in the opening Q1 phase when Verstappen – having just started a hot lap – approached at much higher speed.

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Verstappen changed his line to avoid Hamilton and swore over the radio in response, before both drivers progressed to Q2 and eventually Q3, where they secured respective P5 and P4 positions on the grid for Sunday’s race.

However, after reviewing the incident post-session, the stewards have handed Hamilton a three-place grid drop, meaning he falls to seventh – promoting Verstappen, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.

Hamilton joins Ollie Bearman and Lance Stroll in being penalised – the Haas rookie docked 10 places for a red flag breach in practice and the Aston Martin racer sanctioned twice for an FP1 clash with Charles Leclerc and an impeding incident in Qualifying.

“Car 44 (Hamilton) was on a slow lap and off the racing line as he was approaching Turn 2,” read the stewards’ decision document. “Car 1 (Verstappen) was approaching Car 44 on a push lap.

“The team first informed the driver of Car 44 that Car 1 was on a fast lap. Then they sent another message saying that Car 1 was ‘slowing down’ when in fact Car 1 was always on a push lap and was not ‘slowing down’ as suggested by the team. This resulted in Car 44 speeding up and moving into the racing line of Car 1 entering Turn 3.

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“Car 1 had to react to Car 44 appearing to move into the racing line. This meant that Car 1 had to move off the usual racing line and the push lap had to be aborted by Car 1.

“We carefully examined the racing line taken by Car 1 in previous laps at the same area and determined that Car 44 did in fact enter the racing line that Car 1 used in previous push laps. This put it beyond doubt that Car 1 was impeded.

“The driver of Car 44 expressed his displeasure at the incorrect message from the team immediately after the incident. During the hearing, the fact of the team’s incorrect message leading to the incident was accepted by the driver of Car 44.

“As with previous incidents of this nature where a driver has received inaccurate or incomplete information resulting in a car impeding another, the fact that the radio message was the cause of the impeding does not amount to a mitigating factor.

“We therefore impose the standard penalty of a drop of three grid positions.”

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