Lewis Hamilton reveals stewards' talks over 'inconsistent' F1 penalties

Lewis Hamilton has detailed conversations held with F1 stewards over some of the recent penalties he has received in F1. 

Across the last three grand prix weekends in Great Britain, Belgium, and Hungary, Hamilton has picked up three five-second time penalties and a three-place grid drop. 

The seven-time champion was pinged for a false start at Silverstone, moving briefly before the lights went out, but did not jump the start. He finished third.

At Spa, he received a five-second penalty for causing a collision with George Russell on the opening lap, but the Mercedes driver claimed it was a racing incident and that Hamilton should not have been penalised. After serving the penalty under a well-timed VSC, he finished fourth. 

In Hungary, five seconds were added to his race time for speeding in the pit-lane, exceeding the limit by 0.1kph, which dropped the Briton from fourth on the road to fifth behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.

However, the most severe penalty came in qualifying, where Hamilton was demoted three places on the grid to fifth for impeding Oscar Piastri at Turn 1, thus losing his second place on the road.

Reflecting, Hamilton declared that he took "ultimate responsibility" for the penalties, and detailed talks held with the stewards over the Silverstone sanction. 

"The last two races [before Hungary] have been pretty bad from my side," Hamilton told media, including RacingNews365. 

"Silverstone was my fault; we did talk in the drivers' briefing about the fact that they're inconsistent with this stuff.

"There have been drivers in the past that have moved and haven't been penalised, and we discussed with them the fact that as long as you're not moving when the lights are on, you shouldn't be penalised because I wasn't out of my box, and they agreed.

"So they're looking into that, and [at Spa], even the driver I collided with said it was just a racing incident, and they dished out [a penalty] that was not needed, and it has cost me a lot of points.

"Then [the blocking of Piastri and grid-drop] was just really unfortunate. I take responsibility ultimately; I should have looked in my mirrors, but I thought everyone would have been at the end of the first lap, and there was a communication error."