5s penalty handed to Lewis Hamilton for causing a collision with Sergio Perez leads to outrage on social media.

As the TV pundits breathlessly praised the Spa Sprint, casually throwing in that there were six (6, count 'em!) actual laps of racing, 'fans' were already taking to social media to express their anger at the penalty which dropped Hamilton from fourth to seventh.

The seven-time world champion had been battling with the Mexican for several corners and was attempting to pass the him on the inside at Turn 15.

While Perez was giving little room, Hamilton drove onto the kerb and subsequently understeered into the Red Bull causing damage to the sidepod that was to lead to the Mexican's retirement.

The stewards considered that Hamilton was predominantly at fault for causing the collision and gave the Mercedes driver a 5 second penalty and 2 penalty points.

"Not really much to say," said Hamilton at race end. "A racing incident I think, I tried to go up the inside.

"My only thought is it's tricky conditions out there," he continued, "we're all trying our best, and of course it wasn't intentional.

"I went for a gap, he was slow going through 14, so I went up the inside, I was more than half a car length on the inside, and if you no longer go for a gap you're no longer a racing driver as Ayrton said, so that's what I did.

"When I watched it back it felt like a racing incident to me," he insisted. "I feel like we're in a racing period, we don't want to be deterred from racing, you know?"

Team boss, Toto Wolff agreed.

"Absolute racing incident," said the Austrian. "This is a sprint race, we want to see them racing.

"The argument of the damage isn't valid because he was going backwards before then, massively backwards," he insisted. "When you look at the corner they were side by side.

"Yes, fair enough, it takes two to tango but it's a racing incident. For me that's pretty clear."

"I think he was in a bit of a hurry," sighed Perez. "Everyone was in a hurry to recover today, it's a very short race and you need to take that level of risk. But not nice to get my race ruined by him.

"It was massive damage," he added. "He took out the whole right hand side of the car. He damaged the floor and sidepod so that was game over, we lost too much grip with it."

Meanwhile, social media saw the usual pile-on, with 'fans' hitting out at the FIA and singling out Driver Steward, Derek Warwick, who also happened to be on duty in Abu Dhabi in 2021.

The former F1 driver, F3 and World Sportscar champion, was accused of racism towards Hamilton and it was even pointed out that he has a Honda dealership, as F1 continues to laud the new demographic it is welcoming to the sport.

Check out our Saturday gallery from Spa here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Defiant, 30/07/2023 23:08

"I really hate that I agree with Lewis on this one.

The penalty was wrong. This was clearly a racing incident and as for adding 2 penalty points on top too... wow.

Ayrton was quoted and was correct at the time and it's still correct. The trend of punishing for things like this one is yet another nail in the coffin of a once (long time ago) great sport."

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2. Posted by trackrecords, 30/07/2023 16:43

"Perhaps Perez needs to research "extensive damage" with respect to RAF fighter planes and bombers 'limping home' with most of the plane missing?
As his cooling radiators were still intact, it was rather exaggerating things, he'd got bodywork damage, agreed, but that he could have avoided if he'd hadn't squeezed Lewis."

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3. Posted by Chester, 30/07/2023 12:34

"@F1nerd, I was thinking it was a racing incident, but I do agree, ole LH does this move quite a bit."

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4. Posted by F1nerd, 30/07/2023 11:07

"Its about time he got a penalty, he has been getting away with too much for too long."

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5. Posted by Spindoctor, 30/07/2023 10:11

"The usual problem with stewarding - inconsistency.
I appreciate it's a very hard job, but this is a classic example of how what most people saw as an obvious racing incident is seen as an offence by others. When those "others" are Stewards there is inevitably controversy.

Under the current stewarding arrangements, it's becoming increasingly clear that any attempt to overtake on the inside where there's contact will result in a penalty for the overtaker, even when, as in this case that driver was at least half a car ahead & more at various points during the "overtake". Under these circumstances it often benefits the "overtakee" to try & induce a small contact by squeezing the space. It seemed clear that this is what happened in this instance.
It's also odd that the seriousness of the damage to Perez's car was a deciding factor - are we now to expect a sliding scale depending on how badly the offended party is affected?"

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6. Posted by Greg, 30/07/2023 10:01

"@all, as said before there needs to be some consistency in the stewards decisions. Over the weekend so far there has been none in regards to the incidents that have occured. "

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7. Posted by Burton, 30/07/2023 8:52

"I don't like the tribal social media crowd either, but this penalty was stupid, as has the stewarding been all weekend.
On Friday, 3 similar incidents of impeding/rejoining unsafely we got somehow one penalty, a reprimand and a no action (that went in Lewis favour, so at least the bias argument is not clearcut). Yesterday, F2 sprint, an incident virtually identical to the Perez/Hamilton one was "no further action". Then during the F1 sprint stewards blatantly ignore a whole bunch of unsafe releases in the pitlane and issue only a warning to Alonso. In the context of these two decisions I wasn't really expecting a penalty for a minor tap during side by side wet racing."

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8. Posted by Mad Matt, 30/07/2023 7:46

"For me, it was a bit harsh, it seemed as if Lewis was pushed towards the kerb which resulted in the tiny bit of under-steer which resulted in the contact....

A difficult call for the stewards and one which I can accept but I don't like the implication that the consequences of the contact had a bearing on the punishment. "

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'Fans' hit out over Hamilton penalty

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