Lewis Hamilton has openly questioned Ferrari’s strategic decisions following the Hungarian Grand Prix, where a five-second penalty for pit-lane speeding ultimately dropped him to fifth position. The incident occurred during a late Virtual Safety Car period, further complicating a race where Ferrari had anticipated a stronger performance. Hamilton’s post-race comments highlighted his frustration with the team’s approach.
Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur acknowledged a ‘succession of mistakes’ contributed to Hamilton’s pit-lane penalty. Vasseur indicated that Hamilton’s wheel lock-up on entry to the pit stop, combined with being slightly early on the pit limit release, led to the infringement. Hamilton was clocked at 80.1 km/h in an 80 km/h zone.
The penalty was Hamilton’s fourth sanction in three race weekends, following incidents at the British and Belgian Grands Prix. At Silverstone, he received a five-second penalty for a jump start. In Belgium, he was penalised for a first-lap collision with George Russell.
Prior to the race penalty in Hungary, Hamilton had already incurred a three-place grid drop for impeding Oscar Piastri during qualifying. He had initially qualified second, just 0.012 seconds behind Lando Norris, but the penalty relegated him to fifth on the starting grid.
Hamilton expressed his belief that the late pit stop under the Virtual Safety Car was ill-advised. He stated he would ‘never have stopped’ if it meant sacrificing track position, suggesting he could have maintained a podium finish without the stop.
Vasseur conceded that Ferrari’s overall execution in Hungary was ‘very poor,’ despite the team showing strong pace in Friday practice sessions. He noted that ‘everything went wrong’ for the Scuderia, which had been considered a favourite for victory at the Hungaroring due to the SF-26’s chassis strengths.
The Ferrari team principal admitted that a Soft-Soft-Hard tyre strategy would likely have been more effective. He lamented the missed opportunity for podium finishes, with both Hamilton and Charles Leclerc finishing fourth and fifth respectively.
Hamilton’s race engineer, Carlo Santi, informed him of the pit-lane speeding penalty, to which Hamilton responded, ‘Handing out penalties like crazy.’ He later added, ‘Every opportunity I give those stewards…every single time they give me a penalty.’
The result in Hungary saw Hamilton lose further ground in the Drivers’ Championship, now trailing Kimi Antonelli by 50 points as Formula 1 heads into its summer break.
‘It’s difficult to put all the penalties in the same basket,’ Vasseur stated, differentiating the nature of Hamilton’s recent sanctions.
Despite the setbacks, Hamilton acknowledged his own role in the recent run of penalties, stating, ‘It’s not been perfect from my side, so I’ve really got to work hard to try to figure out how I can do better in the second half.’
