After losing pole to team mate Nico Rosberg in Hungary a frustrated Lewis Hamilton has called for the FIA to clarify to what extent drivers are expected to slow down for yellow flags, and in particular double waved yellows.
Rosberg took pole despite passing through a double yellow zone on that lap, albeit just as spinner Fernando Alonso had got under way again. Rosberg lifted when he saw the yellows, but only lost a minimal amount of time, and has since been exonerated after an FIA investigation.
Hamilton had passed the scene moments earlier, when Alonso’s car was still stationary, and had to abort his lap.
“It just needs to be clarified now,” said Hamilton. “Us drivers need to understand the yellow flag situation, because obviously in the way that it’s written is potentially not the way it’s interpreted, either by the stewards or the drivers. So more clarification would be good. For me there was no question I had to lift, because Fernando was on the track. Perhaps for Nico, Fernando had cleared, but there were still flags, so it was a different scenario.”
Hamilton was keen to point out that double yellows mean be prepared to stop: “When it’s a yellow flag it says you have to be prepared to slow down, or you have to slow down, and lose some time. If it’s a double yellow – there could be a car on the track, there could be a steward on the track, you don’t know what’s around the corner – you have to be prepared to stop, that’s what it says.
“Nico only lost a tenth through the corner, so if that’s what we’re really allowed to do in the future, even though you lift and approach the corner with due care, if that’s allowed on double yellow… Because I thought that was the case on a single yellow, but maybe on a double, I thought you had to pay more caution to it. So if it’s only a tenth that you have to lose, that’s now different for all us drivers, we have to approach it potentially differently.
“But I’m not sure that’s the safest approach. We’ve instances in the past – I seem to remember Maldonado nearly hit a marshal in Monaco one time, because he hadn’t slowed down enough, and there was a marshal on the track. It’s really to make sure that it’s very, very clear to us. It’s not particularly our safety, it’s if there’s a car, a driver on the track, or a marshal.”
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