Hamilton’s remarks spark scrutiny of Mercedes summer shutdown

FIA concern at possible breach of 14-day rule Ferrari fastest in practice to lift hopes of first win

Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes team were last night contacted by Formula One’s governing body to clarify whether they broke the rules.

Ahead of tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix, the championship leader revealed that he had been in communication with Mercedes in the summer break.

But Article 21.8 of the FIA’S sporting code says that “competitors must observe a shutdown period of 14 consecutive days”, forbidding “any work activity by any employee... engaged in design, development or production”.

Hamilton, who is 62 points clear of the field, was addressing the ways in which he, and Mercedes, are striving to continue their domination upon the season’s resumption here. “We had a bit of dialogue with the team which we generally don’t usually have during the break, just trying to see what else we can do to improve,” he said.

“Whether it is communication, whether that means arriving one minute earlier to a meeting, or whatever it may be. We are just looking at all areas.”

FIA race director Michael Masi was made aware of Hamilton’s comments, but the sporting federation stopped short of launching a formal investigation after accepting Mercedes’ explanation. It said Hamilton was referring to conversations with the team in the week immediately after the Hungarian Grand Prix, not during the two-week shutdown.

The 34-year-old has never enjoyed a better start to a campaign. Hamilton usually saves his best drives for the business end of the year, too. And with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen – Hamilton’s closest non-mercedes challenger 69 points behind – admitting that his hopes of catching his rival are improbable, it is little wonder that the Briton is expected to gallop to his sixth championship. “I take it as a compliment that people expect me to win the title,” said Hamilton. “But it doesn’t make any difference to me. If I don’t turn up this weekend in Spa, or next weekend in Monza, or if I make mistakes, I can easily lose this championship.”

A throttle pedal failure restricted his participation in first practice yesterday, before he finished a distant fourth in the final running, 0.9 seconds off the pace. “We had a problem with the throttle and lost power,” said Hamilton. “We went back out and had another problem so it was a bit of a mess.”

Ferrari, hotly tipped to challenge Hamilton’s Mercedes team this year, will start the concluding half of the campaign having failed to register a single win. But the straight-line speed of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari is suited to the Spafrancorchamps layout, and the Italian team’s dominant form in practice, suggests they might end their barren run tomorrow.