Lewis Hamilton opted not to follow Peter Bonnington’s request to retire his W15 during the latter stages of the Qatar Grand Prix but later apologised to his Mercedes crew for picking up two unusual penalties at the Lusail International Circuit.
Hamilton jumped the start by a matter of milliseconds, landing him a slam-dunk five-second time penalty following a brief review from the stewards. Then, later in the race, he picked up a drive-through penalty for failing to follow the pit lane speed limit, all but ending his chances of scoring points.
On top of this, Hamilton was struggling to extract pace from an ill-behaving Mercedes machine. The seven-time world champion’s frustrations have been clear to see this season, and his results have nosedived relative to team-mate George Russell in the final stage of the campaign.
At the time of serving his drive-through penalty, Hamilton was adamant that he would retire the car and end his miserable race early. “Park the car mate,” he told Peter Bonnington. “Retire the car.” He then added: “I’m switching off when I get there mate.”
In the end, the 39-year-old opted to stay out, but was offered another chance to come in and call it a day when Bonnington said: “We can now retire the car.” Hamilton replied: “What position am I in?” and was told: “We’re back at P15. Nine seconds ahead is Norris. He had to do a 10-second stop and go but the rest are 15 seconds ahead.”
Ultimately, Hamilton decided to keep his car on the tarmac and gained positions on Yuki Tsunoda, Liam Lawson and Alex Albon as their soft compound tyres perished during the latter stages of the race.
After the race in the media pen, Hamilton said: “It just didn’t really go that great but these things happen. Don’t judge me by how many times I fall but I’m going to get up tomorrow and give it another go. The car and I don’t get along really that well.
“But we were very, very far off in the beginning and we didn’t have enough wing in to start with, the cars were quite different and it wasn’t really great to drive. But my fault today so apologises to the team for the false start and then the pit-lane incident.”
Hamilton now has just one race left in Mercedes overalls before he can switch off for the winter break and recharge ahead of his move to Ferrari in 2025. The legendary Brit is targeting a record-breaking eighth World Championship and Ferrari’s first Drivers’ Championship title since 2007.
