FIA release statement regarding 3 hour wait for Hamilton verdict

Lewis Hamilton’s pit entry issue has been the centre of discussion post the German GP with a lot of fans wanting the stewards to give him at least a 5 second penalty, similar to what was awarded to Raikkonen during the Baku 2016 incident.

However, after a long discussion with Hamilton and the Mercedes team, the stewards came to a decision that Hamilton won’t be given a time penalty, and the race win would stand.

If a 5 second penalty would have been awarded, Bottas would have become the race winner.

After the verdict, the Ferrari fans weren’t thrilled with the judgement and with the time lag between the verdict and the incident.

Charlie Whiting has clarified that the FIA and the stewards wanted a proper reasoning from Mercedes about the incident and hence had decided to wait until the end of the race.

“It just takes a little bit of time to make sure that, if you’re going to call a team, you have good reason for calling them,” Whiting said in a press conference, as quoted by Racefans

“We wanted to wait until after the race to take a look at it because we were getting quite close to the end of it. Then there was all the rain and thunderstorms and everything like that.

“By the time everything had calmed down we needed to have a good look at it and the stewards decided they should discuss it with the team.” he added.

Hamilton was also a part of the discussion and was honest with the stewards regarding the confusion that he faced in that second and a half.

“They ask you to explain what happened. I was 100% open with them. I’ve been [there] many times in the past, I was there a lot, but hardly ever see them now. I respect the rules and respect the job that they have to do.

“I was open, this was how it was. They could see and hear how confusing it was. I left and had to go back and went and they said ‘we’ll tell you shortly’.” Hamilton said.

The FIA also confirmed that Ferrai had nothing to do with the summon.