Hamilton breaks lap record then suffers grid penalty setback
LEWIS HAMILTON’S misfortune continued last night when he was hit with a five-place grid penalty for the Austrian Grand Prix. Hamilton was handed the demotion after his Mercedes team made an unscheduled gearbox change following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix a fortnight ago. Teams must run a gearbox for six consecutive events. The penalty ends any hopes of levelling Michael Schumacher’s record 68 pole positions at his home Grand Prix at Silverstone next weekend. Hamilton was leading the race in Baku but was forced to pit midway through on safety grounds after his headrest came loose. That stop effectively cancelled out a 10-second stop-go penalty handed to Sebastian Vettel for deliberately driving into his rival on lap 19. Hamilton re-emerged behind the Ferrari driver and finished a place lower than the German who extended his lead to 14 points with 12 races to go. Hamilton had made a strong start to the weekend in Spielberg as he topped both Friday practice sessions and broke the Red Bull Ring’s lap record in the process. After Vettel apologised, Hamilton said it was all ‘water under the bridge’ but it will be fascinating to see how he reacts after this latest hurdle. Meanwhile, Vettel’s former team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was not surprised to see the flare-up in Baku. ‘It wasn’t out of character,’ said the Australian. ‘He’s competitive and just says what he thinks before he thinks — and that move was the same. ‘He just did it, then realised, “Oh s***! Maybe I shouldn’t have”. ‘It’s part of his competitive personality. Part of me admires his passion to win and I think the penalty was justified. A 10sec stop-go was enough.’ Few in the paddock know the German well. Vettel’s private life is precisely that. He shuns social media and interviews are rare but he and Ricciardo spent a season as Red Bull team-mates in 2014 when the Australian comfortably beat the four-time world champion by 71 points over 19 races. Desperate to regain his No 1 status, Vettel moved to current team Ferrari the following year.