Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Sochi Autodrom, 2020

Hamilton has “no idea” why he’s under investigation for track limits infringement

2020 Russian Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton and three other drivers are under investigation for infringing a recently-revised track limits rule at Sochi Autodrom.

The Mercedes driver, plus Nicholas Latifi, Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen are all being investigated for “failure to follow the Race Directors’ instruction in turn two” during Q1.

FIA Formula 1 race director Michael Masi issued new guidance to drivers regarding the enforcement of track limits at turn two on Saturday morning ahead of qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix.

Turn two has a short orange kerb at its apex and long orange kerbs before and after it. Drivers must rejoin the track by driving between the blocks on the left-hand side if they are deemed to have exceeded track limits at this point on the circuit.

On Saturday morning drivers were given a revised definition of the track limits at this corner. They were told they would have to drive between the blocks if they “have any part of the car over the first orange kerb element prior to the apex”. Replays of Hamilton’s car when he cut the corner in Q1 showed he did drive across this kerb and did not return to the track by driving between the blocks.

Hamilton also went off at the same corner in Q2, and did take the correct route back onto the circuit on that occasion. He also had a lap time deleted for running wide at a different corner.

Asked if he was concerned by the investigation Hamilton, who took pole position in qualifying, said: “I have no idea what that is. But there’s always going to be something isn’t there?”

The full track limits definition for turn two states: “Each time any car fails to negotiate turn two by using the track, and who passes to the left of, or has any part of the car over the first orange kerb element prior to the apex, or to the left of the orange apex sausage at turn two, must then re-join the track by driving around the array of blocks as indicated by the arrows before the rejoining the track at turn three.”

Footage from qualifying showed Grosjean, Magnussen and Latifi all touched the same kerb as Hamilton without driving between all of the blocks. Of all four, only Magnussen drove around any of the blocks, but missed the first of them.

Hamilton, Latifi, Grosjean and Magnussen
Hamilton, Latifi, Grosjean and Magnussen all touched the first orange kerb at turn two

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2020 Russian Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
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35 comments on “Hamilton has “no idea” why he’s under investigation for track limits infringement”

  1. The stewards really need to resolve this stuff quicker. There is plenty of time for the next session starts to investigate and clear this stuff up.

    1. Have to agree @slotopen, if this is about a lap he did to go to the next session then it is ridiculous to have it be investigated after the later two sessions are done. And if not, what is the need to even look at it?

    2. @slotopen @bosyber It’s because in some instances they want to talk to the drivers & look at the available data in more depth than they have time to during an active session.

      They may have time between qualifying segments to look at things but they are not able to speak directly to teams/drivers until after qualifying is finished.

      1. I get that part @gt-racer, but it was quite unclear to me why it wasn’t urgent enough to decide immediately – the new article on racefans.net explaining the decision, and what it was about does – the laptimes were already deleted so in that sense no influence on rest of quali – but important enough to look at after the fact, which can sort of be pieced together from the judgement: apparently this was about whether deleting the laptimes was sufficient punishment or whether there needed to be stronger signals to the drivers to prevent future infringements, well ok.

        So, it’s sort of fine as we can see from the facts we got in that article, but the FIA still isn’t so very good at communicating clearly, I guess?

  2. didnt he just cut chicane in Q1?

    1. Lots of Latifi breaking the rules! Who’s the fourth one?

      1. Magnussen!

    2. @Chaitanya No. This track doesn’t have chicanes.

      1. Turn 2 is a chicane of sorts, Lewis did just cut it across and he did even during FP sessions. This whole thing reminds of penalty Magnussen got last year during race.

        1. @Chaitanya By that argument, so would Bahrain’s T2-T3 even though T3 isn’t really even a corner, to begin with, or Mexico’s T13-T14. Another example would be the Red Bull Ring’s T7-T8. These are just some instances of several sections of track where a slight(-ish) curve or kink follows a corner, but no one regards the above examples as ‘chicanes’ so weird to see anyone thinking this way about this weekend’s track’s T2. Never previously have I seen or heard anyone referring to it as a chicane because of the small kink that follows immediately.

  3. 1 place grid penalty might actually help him ;)

  4. Little, almost invisible yellow crosses were on the outside of the corner and No red light on the pit lane entry in Monza … and now a new guidance to drivers regarding the enforcement of track limits at turn two on Saturday morning ahead of qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix. FIA are desperate to confuse F1 drivers with this kind of stuff!

  5. By the time they knew they were going to run that bit wide, across the end of the first orange kerb, to go through the bollards they’d have had to turn sharp left and drive actually all the way along the second orange kerb, down the middle! So I don’t think it was a realistic rule change.

    1. Once a driver runs off the track, he doesn’t control the car for 100%, so to ask him to drive perfectly there (within centimeters) is a ridiculous idea/law.

  6. betting lewis gets a 3 place grid penalty as a reason to spice up the show

    1. I do believe this is part of F1s stewarding decisions. Felt that way since the b&w flag for Leclerc at Monza.

  7. It looked like Hamilton was still trying to make the corner. He might not even have been aware whether this would be a legal lap or a deleted one at the point he made the decision, so it seemed reasonable for him to continue in this case. It would be silly if a driver would be forced to give up on making the corner, then fully drive across the orange kerbs, potentially damaging the car just to make it around the blocks on the far side. I’d be surprised to see any penalty in this case, although I didn’t see what Grosjean or the two Latifis did :)

  8. Just seems like it’s all artificial now to stop Lewis winning. Look at all 4 of those pictures, what are the drivers meant to do? Drive back over the curbs and go at a near 90 degree angle to get to the bollards, absolutely ridiculous…
    How the sport misses Charlie Whiting, it’s been a mess since that tragedy

    1. +1. Charlie’s leadership is severely missed.

      1. Don’t miss charlie whiting, it seems this new director is trying to spice things up at least. With whiting there were the most boring decisions in f1.

    2. FIA Race Director Michael Masi is ignoring their own mistakes (Safety Car’s confusion and a huge crash in Tuscan GP), but are quick to find ridiculous penalties for drivers! What a Shame!

    3. +1. They would also have to brake heavily, leave the racetrack to turn towards the barriers to make it around the bollards… then rejoin the racetrack, probably seriously disrupting the lap of the drivers behind who have now caught up while on their fast lap…

      F1 is losing its collective mind.

  9. Sochi’s Turn 2 is so badly designed, it causes confusion every year.

  10. Rules are becoming a joke.

  11. Masi loves his name in the headlines it seems.

  12. As far as I can tell, this infringement did not benefit his laptime as such, nor did it hamper others?
    In that case, a fine would seem to be a correct penalty rather than taking away a pole.

  13. To be honest, I don’t get the sudden change of approach towards the final corner. If it wasn’t advantageous before, why would it have suddenly become one? I feel the change of approach was merely a knee-jerk reaction to Bottas going off there twice yesterday even though he didn’t gain anything, but rather lost time because of going off, so was slower compared to if he had stayed on the track with at least two wheels. The sausage kerb material would be a better option.

  14. It’s hard to penalise the driver at the end of qualifying. If his lap was unacceptable then they could have deleted the time in that session and that would give him the opportunity to set another time. He still has the penalty of burning up another set of tyres, risk of having another incident, and there’s extra action on track.

  15. If I say the stewards are daft it may be taken as an insult but I don’t mean it that way.
    None of the drivers appear to have done anything that warrants an investigation.
    These cars are going at some speed through that corner. If you lose the car early enough then you can keep to the left. If you lose the car very late, unless you step on the brakes and do a 3 point turn, there is no way you can achieve what the bright sparks want you to.
    I begin to wonder if these chaps even drive road cars, because even some of this stop is not possible driving your regular road car.
    I only hope they are not doing all these for the likes and thumbs up on social media.

  16. Lane Baumgardner
    26th September 2020, 16:30

    Are you kidding me!!! What was he supposed to do …he was going full beans when his car got a little squirly when he exceeded that kink it wasnt like he was doing it on purpose. In the restart of q2 when he lost the rear end due to tire temp he was in a position to go around the bollards at this point there is no way he feasibly could.

  17. new rules every morning ..new rules for each track.. its getting F1 to become a farce…
    which other sport does this before start of each game….? NONE.

    1. That’s reality of every race series, all around the world.

      The fact that you and Lewis don’t know that is embarrassing.

  18. The fact he doesn’t know doesn’t surprise me.

    He’s above familiarizing himself with the rules at each circuit or reading the communication from the officials … so just like he missed the ‘pitlane closed’ previously, he’s blissfully doing whatever he feel like around the circuit with no regard for the local rules.

    1. The fact all drivers were cleared shows why he didn’t know why he was called to the stewards.
      There was absolutely no reason to call the drivers to the stewards as there was nothing the drivers could have done at the point the found themselves apart from either launching their cars skywards or damaging their floors.

  19. ‘Local rules’ made up on Saturday morning! What a joke!!!

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