HOCKENHEIM Lewis Hamilton’s move to seek clarification about team mate Nico Rosberg’s controversial pole lap in Hungary from the F1 governing body’s Charlie Whiting was misjudged and regrettable, his Mercedes team said on Friday.
Advertisement
The result was a change in the rules revealed this week, meaning any time double waved yellows are required in qualifying, the session will now be red flagged.
Whiting insisted “I’ve had no lobbying from drivers” over the issue, while he also explained why the stewards in Hungary took more than three hours to formally investigate the Rosberg incident after the end of qualifying. He improved in the afternoon despite running into traffic, ending just under six-tenths of a second behind Rosberg.
“Personally, he should have kept to advice from the team and we can obtain that from Charlie as necessary”, Lowe said.
“So, I think that’s the reason why it is postponed, for now”.
Manor engineering consultant Pat Fry, formerly of Ferrari, said: “A lot of research has gone into it over the years”.
“I just don’t want to get into these discussions where you need to try and decide whether a driver has slowed down enough”. “We’ve agreed for a system to come in in 2018, but it needs to be fully researched, fully developed and fully tested”.
Behind the Mercedes duo, Vettel emerged the best of the rest, just over two tenths of a second ahead of Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.
Clear said: “Obviously, [the departure of] someone of his calibre is not going to go unnoticed”.
“But in Nico’s defence, he had only one yellow sector to go through, and that was a short one – whereas the other drivers had two yellow sectors to go through”. We’re going to have to pull together. “He will be missed, but that’s the challenge for us”.
“FP2 didn’t feel very good”.
The Red Bulls were up next, with Max Verstappen finishing P5 and Daniel Ricciardo P6 as the Australian starts his 100th Grand Prix. “He’s got a very bright future”.
Meanwhile, Matt Morris, McLaren’s director of engineering, believes “common sense has prevailed” in the relaxing of radio rules – another decision announced on Thursday.
Advertisement
“We looked at it first of and the stewards said “we think that’s fine”.
