- Mercedes
Hamilton confused by FIA punishments after Spa
Lewis Hamilton thinks the FIA has set up a confusing precedent after it decided not to punish Nico Rosberg for the collision which gave him a puncture at the Belgian Grand Prix.
During and after the race Rosberg escaped punishment for the lap two clash which cost Hamilton a top-ten finish and 18 points in the title fight. In the closing laps of the same race Kevin Magnussen forced Fernando Alonso off the grass and received a ten-second post-race penalty, even though the Spaniard was able to continue.
Though he thinks its difficult to compare individual incidents in F1 Hamilton believes there is now a question-mark over how the FIA would respond to collisions between drivers in future.
"I think the FIA have a really tough job and especially over the last few years have done an exceptional job on the majority of the calls," Hamilton said. "I think their problem is always that scenarios are different so the same rule doesn't always apply, exactly. Sometimes its hard to say which rule applies to which situation.
"But it's a good question to be honest because how do you move forward from that? Does that mean that we can all now say 'OK, we can race a lot closer and if the guy in front comes off and is out of the race, nothing will happen and we can be more relaxed about it'? Or does it mean if it happens again there will be a penalty? We are always asking to be able to race because it's very hard out there to manoeuvre a car at those high speeds without sometimes having contact. There's a fine line, but I don't really know the full answer."
Hamilton and Rosberg both attended the FIA press conference on Thursday at Monza and unsurprisingly fielded plenty of questions about the collision. But Hamilton says wants to move on from the incident, though he does not believe trust between drivers is necessarily a given in Formula One regardless of their history.
"I knew you were going to say that," he said when asked if trust was now an issue with Rosberg. "I already said everything in the team press release. Trust is a big word and that's not something I would particularly apply to racing on the track. Naturally me and Nico have been racing for a long time and we set a good foundation a long, long time ago so that's what we work on."
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