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Hamilton escapes grid penalty for Austrian GP

Hamilton was knocked out in qualifying on the Red Bull Ring on Saturday by Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, which forced the world champion to settle for second place after 0.012s. However, the British had to report to the stewards afterwards, as he might have ignored the yellow flags at the end of qualifying.

Hamilton would not have run out of gas the moment Bottas made a mistake on his last attempt and landed off the track. At that moment Hamilton managed to tighten his time by a tenth of a second and already announced afterwards that he had not seen any yellow flags.

Contradictory signals

The stewards studied the onboard images of Hamilton’s Mercedes after qualifying. Although it did indeed show marshals with yellow flags, in Briton 5 the Brit also passed a light panel on which the green flag was displayed. Because of the conflicting signals, the stewards eventually decided to give Hamilton the benefit of the doubt, allowing the Briton to keep his second starting position.

Hamilton was also found guilty for exceeding the runway limit on his first attempt in the third qualifying round. The first attempt by the Brit was therefore crossed out, but because Hamilton managed to go faster in his second lap, the deletion of his first lap was ultimately without consequences.


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