Lewis Hamilton issues immediate apology at Italian Grand Prix as Brit has crushing penalty
Lewis Hamilton is carrying a penalty for the Italian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton issued an apology to his Ferrari engineers after qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix. The 40-year-old was hoping to battle for the top spot after a strong set of free practice sessions, but dropped back to fifth at the end of Q3, finishing one spot behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Worse still, the seven-time world champion must now serve a brutal five-place grid penalty, dropping him to 10th on the grid for his first taste of the Italian GP with Ferrari. Hamilton faces an uphill battle to score his first podium in the Scuderia's red overalls at the 16th time of asking.
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After discovering the result, Hamilton dialled into the radio, telling race engineer Riccardo Adami: “Great job today, guys. I’m really grateful for the push. Sorry I couldn’t go quicker.” He replied: "No worries. We’re getting there. We’ll push tomorrow.”
Despite the setback, Hamilton took the positives from being on pace with Leclerc in qualifying for the second race weekend in a row. “I am really, really happy with the progress we’ve made," he told Sky Sports F1.
"Particularly on my side of the garage, it’s definitely been a lot more solid last week and even more so this weekend as I’ve been right there within a tenth. So just got to keep working on it, seeing progress. It’s been amazing being here as a Ferrari driver, I can’t even find the words for it, to be honest. The fans here are really beautiful.
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The energy since Wednesday, they have turned up in their thousands already for the event we had in the city in Milan, and then here, when you leave the garage, when you get down to turn one and see them on the left and the right and throughout the whole [circuit], you just see red, just red. I don’t know what’s possible tomorrow, but I’ve got to wiggle my way through.”
While Hamilton's qualifying performance was a step in the right direction, the Tifosi were unable to see one of their drivers fight for pole position. Instead, Max Verstappen punched in a new lap record, fending off the McLaren duo of Lando Norris to lock down the top spot on the grid.
However, the Scuderia's qualifying result was significant for the Constructors' Championship battle with Mercedes. George Russell was only able to put his Mercedes on the third row of the grid, although both he and team-mate Kimi Antonelli - who qualified seventh - will move up a spot due to Hamilton's grid penalty.