Stewards have ruled that no further action will be taken against Lewis Hamilton after it was suggested that the Mercedes driver’s tyre pressures were below regulation levels at the Italian Grand Prix.
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It is, for the moment at least, his seventh win of the season, and as an extra bonus Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mate and only world championship rival, Nico Rosberg, retired three laps from the end with his engine in flames.
However, Hamilton’s victory was under investigation on Sunday after his Mercedes team were alleged to have raced with illegally low tyre pressures.
But the stewards determined that the tyres were initially inflated correctly, and had reduced in pressure by the time the measurement was taken because they had cooled down due to their warming blankets being unplugged.
Without specifying a reason, Hamilton was told by his team to drive flat out in the final laps, potentially to negate the repercussions of a penalty in relation to the tyre pressure.
It is Hamilton’s 40th victory of his career, leaving him just one chequered flag behind his idol, Ayrton Senna, in the all-time list.
However, a fundamental issue with the cooling system led to a leak that “contaminated” Rosberg’s new power unit, forcing the team to revert him back to his “old” specification engine for qualifying and the race.
Wolff added that “we need to talk about procedures in the future” and the stewards also suggested a clarification on how and when pressures are measured.
This and the team’s adherence to safety procedures was sufficient evidence of Mercedes’ good intent to sway the decision in their favour.
“I’m just disappointed. A weekend is a lot of work and to lose it with two laps to go or something, with some OK points – damage limitation it would have been”.
The Williams team drivers Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas finished provisionally third and fourth in the 53-laps race.
“You guys come up with those statistics each year but it is absolutely irrelevant – I have got to win every race from now on”, Hamilton said.
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It certainly doesn’t – if the tests aren’t carried out in controlled conditions (i.e. constant temperature) then are they really worth doing at all? “I’ve never seen anything like it, so thank you everyone”.
