Toto Wolff Delivers Much-Needed Pep Talk to Rescue Drowning Lewis Hamilton After 5 Second Penalty

Lewis Hamilton received a five-second penalty during the Austrian Grand Prix after he made a mistake while entering the pitlane. Although the Briton admitted his mistake and also apologized for it, Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff only had words of encouragement for the 39-year-old.

During his first pitstop on lap 23, Hamilton slid and crossed the white line at the pit entry, which resulted in him getting the penalty. Feeling the weight of his mistake, Hamilton got on the team radio to apologize to his race engineer, Bono.

But Toto Wolff quickly intervened to boost Hamilton’s morale. Wolff, who has been close friends with Hamilton for a long time, said, “Lewis, there is everything to play here, everything to play“.

A five-second penalty for Lewis Hamilton, after losing control and crossing the white line at pit-entry ⏱⚠ pic.twitter.com/PT89N3gGCm

— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) June 30, 2024

These were much-needed words of encouragement for Hamilton, who believed that he had cost his team valuable points. However, this wasn’t the only unfortunate incident for the seven-time world champion at the Red Bull Ring.

Lewis Hamilton was told to give a position back on the opening lap

On the opening lap of the race, Hamilton overtook Carlos Sainz for fourth on the outside of turn 1. However, the replays showed he had done so by potentially going outside the track limits.

While he initially seemed to have gained a spot, the stewards took note of this incident. It’s not unusual to see such incidents in the opening laps of the race when the whole pack is extremely close together. The race stewards are usually lenient in such cases and avoid handing out unnecessary penalties by often citing these as racing incidents.

However, Mercedes did not want to take any risk. Hence, even before the stewards could decide on Hamilton’s move on Sainz, Bono came over the team radio and instructed the 39-year-old to give the place back to the Ferrari driver to avoid a penalty.

While the British driver avoided a potential penalty early on, this meant that he had to do the hard work of overtaking Sainz all over again. Hamilton ultimately could not overtake Sainz and finished one position behind the Spaniard in fourth.