This incident triggered a five-second penalty for Leclerc, who despite increasing his slight lead on the track, lost time at the pit stop and could not maintain the lead. After a red flag, things became even more complicated when he deflated his tires. Hamilton, for his part, finished the race in second position, eight-tenths behind the winner, Max Verstappen.
Hamilton expressed his disappointment over the lack of team sanction in this situation in internal communications and insisted that Leclerc should have returned the position. ‘He has clean air, and he shouldn’t have to manage like the rest,’ Hamilton stated, who later negotiated his dissatisfaction with the race’s development in the closed park area.
The Briton said it was a complicated day, although he believed they had the pace to win. ‘We will talk about it off the track and see how we can resolve it. We need to have serious conversations,’ he concluded, emphasizing that incident management is crucial for the team’s success.
Additionally, Hamilton took the opportunity to praise Kimi Antonelli, the recent world champion at a young age, and expressed his confidence in the Mercedes team’s project for the upcoming season, hoping they can compete at the highest level with the expected improvements in the engine.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
SourceID: SRC_cd6c171a7d56019a46a165dda1a68e93cba3c9a0

