October 10, (THEWILL) – Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team driver Sir Lewis Hamilton has queried the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and Formula 1 over the rules, even though he declared that he “doesn’t really care” about losing a pole position from the record books after receiving a 10-place grid penalty.
It is the second time this season that a controversy has erupted over the awarding of pole, when it was decided that the winner of the sprint events would be given pole position in the record books, rather than the fastest driver in Friday qualifying.
When Hamilton was asked how it felt to have the pole taken away from him, he said, “Well, I still… I get recorded the pole, right? No? Ah, dammit.”
“I don’t really know,” he said when asked if the FIA and Formula One needed to work together to fix that. “I mean, I mean, I got pole. I don’t think the penalty should affect that necessarily but I don’t really care, to be honest.”
Valtteri Bottas, a teammate, took advantage of the penalty and now has the same number of pole positions as fellow Finn Kimi Raikkonen (18), second only to Mika Hakkinen in the Finnish standings.
Bottas agreed with Hamilton and thought it was unjust to take the pole away from the fastest driver.
“I think on the sprint weekends, definitely, the fast man in qualifying should be handed the official pole award and pole position for records, and also in a situation like this, Lewis had the fastest single lap,” said Bottas.
“He was technically on pole but then after he is dropped so… I don’t think it’s really fair but obviously I will happily still take the tyre [the trophy awarded by Pirelli for pole] but maybe next time it will be completely different.”
Hamilton set the fastest time in qualifying for the Turkish F1 Grand Prix on Saturday, but his Mercedes teammate Bottas took the pole position as the Briton serves a 10-place grid penalty.
To mitigate the impact of the penalty he received for breaking the F1 limit by altering an engine component, the seven-time world champion lapped the 5,338-meter circuit in one minute and 22.868s.
