LEWIS HAMILTON has been hit with a grid penalty following an incident with Max Verstappen in qualifying.
The Ferrari driver was almost involved in a collision in Monaco.
GettyLewis Hamilton has been hit with a grid penalty after almost colliding with Max Verstappen[/caption]
Hamilton was told by his team that Verstappen was on a cool down lap when he was actually on a flying lap in qualifying.
That meant the defending world champion had to react quickly to swerve around his rival, narrowly avoiding a crash.
Hamilton, 40, has been hit with a three-place grid penalty, dropping from fourth to seventh.
That means Verstappen will now start ahead of him in fourth.
Hamilton apologised to his rival after the race in the paddock, despite the blunder being outside his control.
Immediately after the incident, a furious Verstappen reacted saying: “F*** who mate, f*** Lewis. Massive impeding that.”
Verstappen later accepted Hamilton was not at fault, but admitted he thought he would still incur a penalty.
He said: “I saw immediately that the team [Ferrari] told [Lewis Hamilton] that I was driving slow, while I was clearly driving fast. So it’s not Lewis’ fault. I mean, I quickly chatted to Lewis already about it.”
“Yeah, it’s very simple, but of course it can’t happen, but that’s the team’s mistake.
“If you look at the history of things, yes [expect a penalty], but again, you know, it’s more a team’s fault, but unfortunately in qualifying, of course, they normally are quite strict on these things.”
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