Lewis Hamilton apologised to Oscar Piastri after their F1 Italian GP contact, Toto Wolff and Andrea Stella praise the Brit.
Mercedes’ Hamilton did not waste time post the F1 Italian GP to apologise to McLaren’s Piastri as the moment was caught on the onboard of the Australian in parc ferme. It was for the incident between in the closing stages of the grand prix.
With the medium tyre advantage, Hamilton was rushing through couple of drivers when he came in contact with Piastri at Turn 4 approach. He moved to his right thereby blocking the Australian which resulted in broken front wing for the McLaren driver.
Hamilton was handed a 5s penalty but he managed to pass Lando Norris and Alexander Albon for sixth and also create enough buffer to eradicate that penalty and retain the position. For the Brit, it was important to raise his hands up and apologise.
“It was important because it was obviously in my fault and it naturally wasn’t intentional,” said Hamilton to media. “Got up alongside and just misjudged the gap that I had to the right, clipped him and it could happen at any time. But I knew shortly afterwards it must have been my fault, so I wanted to make sure he knew that it wasn’t intentional.
“That’s what gentlemen do, right?,” summed up Hamilton, as Piastri acknowledged the apology which was the maximum he could have asked for along with a penalty. It did ruin his chances for a points results but there was nothing more he could have asked for.
“The contact with Lewis was obviously the biggest point,” said Piastri to media. “He apologised and stewards gave out a penalty, so I can’t ask for anything other than that. I think he moved too far to the right, I mean it is very easy to do in that corner, it is very narrow.
“He came and apologised, so there’s not much more than that,” summed up Piastri, whose team boss Stella too had praise for Hamilton for a quick response even though the move was uncalled for as he would have cleared him anyways.
“I think maybe Lewis got a little bit frustrated because in reality Lewis would have overtaken Oscar if not there, he would have overtaken at the next opportunity,” said Stella. “In a similar way, I think, there was no need to take too much risk for Lewis because he had the pace to overtake with more margin I would say.
“But Lewis is a fair competitor, if he apologised, it shows his qualities as a competitor and as a person and he definitely our respect.” Mercedes chief Wolff concurred on the Hamilton part while throwing shade on his rivals by noting that the Brit is always good with accepting things and not moaning about it.
“It was a mistake,” said Wolff. “I think five second penalty for that is what the menu says. These things happen you know. It’s hard racing if you want to overtake here and we’ve seen a few of these so yeah it’s justified. He’s very Sportsmanlike with these things and he is the only one that I see out there admitting and saying: I got this wrong.
“We just had a chat and he didn’t see him on the right and it goes on me. And I think that kind of sportsmanship is what you need to admire with him, and pretty much everyone is always complaining and moaning just to try to not gain a penalty,” summed up Wolff.
Here’s contact between Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-italian-grand-prix-piastri-suffers-front-wing-damage-after-collision-with-hamilton.1776031976500722887.html
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