Lewis Hamilton has apologised to his Mercedes team after his bid to take charge of the Formula One championship hit a minor bump when he crashed out of practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Friday.
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Race officials announced they were investigating the incident at around 7.15pm on Saturday evening, three hours after the qualifying round came to a close.
“I just got a really good lap in the last lap, so I’m really happy with that”, Rosberg said.
“I had a very, very big lift and lost a lot of time as a result”, Rosberg said.
The rules state under double-waved yellow situations a driver must “reduce.speed significantly, not overtake, and be prepared to change direction or stop”.
The stewards investigated the incident but chose to take no further action. Rosberg clocked a time of 1min 19.965sec, which couldn’t be bested by his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton, meanwhile, called for more clarity on how much drivers need to slow down for yellow flags. I was a bit unfortunate with Fernando but these things happen.
Hamilton, who is just one point behind Rosberg in the race for the championship, has endured a rather troubled weekend in his bid to claim a record-breaking fifth win at the Hungaroring, and take control of the title race for the first time this season.
By the time Rosberg came through, Alonso’s vehicle had moved and the double-waved yellows cleared just before he entered Turn 9.
Hamilton held provisional pole after the initial runs in a dry Q3 at the Hungaroring, and looked on course to seal the deal on his second run, but backed out of his lap as Fernando Alonso spun his McLaren at Turn 9 and brought out yellow flags.
Had this been applied literally, Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen would have been demoted from the second row to 12th and 13th and Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg from ninth to 19th, and others promoted accordingly.
McLaren had their best qualifying result since renewing their engine partnership with Honda at the start of previous year with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, who both had their first race wins in Hungary, in seventh and eighth. But perhaps for Nico, I think Fernando had cleared [out the way], but there were still flags.
Heavy rain delayed the start of Q1 by 20 minutes, flooding many parts of the paddock, including television commentary booths. “I’m not too disappointed and we still have a long race ahead of us”.
Ahead of the qualifying session for the Hungarian GP, Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kyvat was already seething.
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And in the second session, held in sunshine on a rapidly drying track, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was the big loser.
