Components 1 race winner Juan Pablo Montoya has argued that the FIA stewards had been fully justified in penalising Lewis Hamilton for his opening-lap collision with George Russell on the Belgian Grand Prix.
Russell, who began from third at Spa-Francorchamps, suffered a sudden lack of electrical deployment off the road. As he was swamped by the pack, he was caught up in a collision with Hamilton’s Ferrari.
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Hamilton suffered a snap of understeer and made contact with the Mercedes, sending Russell into the gravel and out of the race. The stewards subsequently handed the seven-time champion a five-second penalty for “inflicting a collision”.
Whereas many, together with Russell, labelled the conflict as a first-lap racing incident, Montoya argued that the actual fact it was the opening lap doesn’t excuse a driver’s failure to keep up their line.
“George was beneath management forward of Lewis by means of the nook and gave Lewis sufficient room, and Lewis couldn’t maintain his line,” Montoya defined in the course of the F1 TV post-race present. “The truth of it’s Lewis understeered into him. Was it on goal? No, by no means.
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“But it surely nonetheless brought about the incident, and that is why I feel George calls it a racing incident as a result of it might probably occur on the primary lap. I perceive the way in which you see it, however the issue is the way in which the foundations are written. That is a penalty.”
George Russell, Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
George Russell, Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Alex Brundle, who joined Montoya on the printed, partially agreed. “I feel with George coming from behind, on another lap, that may be a penalisable incident,” he stated.
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“On the primary lap with everybody on chilly tyres, we’ll differ throughout the panel right here.”
The retirement was a blow to Russell’s 2026 title marketing campaign, dropping him 50 factors behind his Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli. It was additionally Russell’s second retirement of the season by means of no fault of his personal.
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