Defending Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix on Thursday for giving misleading evidence to race stewards.
Hamilton was awarded third place after the season-opening race in Melbourne last weekend when stewards ruled Toyota’s Jarno Trulli breached regulations by passing Hamilton during a safety car period. But new evidence brought before another hearing contradicted Hamilton’s earlier statements.
Trulli was reinstated to his original third-place finish, while Hamilton and his McLaren team were excluded from the results and receive no points.
A new hearing into the matter, convened by motor sport world governing body FIA, interviewed both drivers and teams, and heard new evidence which included radio transmissions between teams and drivers in Melbourne, as well as technical data from the race.
After deliberating for several hours, FIA released a statement which said Hamilton and McLaren “acted in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the stewards.”
“We’re disappointed by what’s happened, but in the circumstances we aren’t going to appeal,” McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said.
“I believe it was a harsh decision. Experience has told us you’ve got to accept these decisions,” he said. “These things come along, and you have to build on your concentration for this weekend and the races to come.”
Full statement from the FIA:
Penalty Imposed On Driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton And Competitor Vodafone Mclaren Mercedes
Summary Of Key Considerations
At the first hearing following the Australian Grand Prix the Stewards did not have the benefit of the radio exchanges between driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and his Team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes nor did they have access to the comments to the Media given by Lewis Hamilton immediately after the end of the race.
From the video recordings available to the Stewards during the hearing it appeared that Jarno Trulli’s car left the track and car No 1 moved into third place. It then appeared that Trulli overtook Hamilton to regain third place, which at the time was prohibited as it was during the Safety Car period.
During the hearing, held approximately one hour after the end of the race, the Stewards and the Race Director questioned Lewis Hamilton and his Team Manager David Ryan specifically about whether there had been an instruction given to Hamilton to allow Trulli to overtake. Both the driver and the Team Manager stated that no such instruction had been given. The Race Director specifically asked Hamilton whether he had consciously allowed Trulli to overtake. Hamilton insisted that he had not done so.
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