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Lewis Hamilton's day at Interlagos has seemingly gone from bad to worse, as after being knocked out of the SQ2 session, the Briton was also summoned by the stewards. He is being investigated by the stewards for allegedly not slowing down under double-waved yellow flags in the second sector of the lap.
Arriving at the Brazilian GP race weekend, Hamilton had high hopes. The seven-time champion has tasted victory champagne three times at the Grand Prix, and despite seemingly not having the car underneath to take him to a race win, he aimed to have a strong weekend in Brazil.
However, these plans have met an early speedbreaker. In the Sprint qualifying session, the Ferrari SF-25 didn't look like one of the strongest cars in the field, contrary to its performance in the past few race weeks.
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To further rub salt in its wounds, the scarlet duo were on the fringes of the top-10 in the SQ2, and in a desperate attempt to improve on his time, Charles Leclerc went over the limit and spun his car in sector 2. While this meant that any driver who was following him would have to abort his flying lap, Hamilton's onboard audio conveyed a different story.
Hamilton, who was in a time crunch, seemingly went full beans to reach the homestretch on time to start his final flying lap. But, encountering a wild SF-25 stranded in the grass that he would have had to considerably slow down to address the danger on the track.
However, he didn't reduce his pace much in that sector when passing by Leclerc, and the stewards decided to investigate the matter after the sprint qualifying session and handed him a summons to meet the stewards for the same.
In such circumstances, stewards don't give much leeway and usually issue a five-place grid drop for the subsequent race.
When was the last time that Lewis Hamilton received a grid drop due to an incident in a qualifying session?
This race weekend will mark Lewis Hamilton's 347th race start in the world of F1. So, while the 40-year-old has quite a bit of experience in winning races, he has also tackled the challenge of grid drops throughout his career.
His most recent one in a qualifying format came at the Monaco GP weekend. There, he had impeded Max Verstappen on a flyer, leading the stewards to issue him a three-place grid drop for the incident.
With the issue of drivers not respecting a yellow-flag zone being considered a severe offence in the eyes of the stewards, Lewis Hamilton might be on the verge of receiving a penalty. So if he is handed a five-place grid penalty, he would start 16th instead of 11th at the Sprint race tomorrow (November 8).
