Hamilton 'doesn't really care' about Sprint penalty

Lewis Hamilton dismissed the five second penalty he received in today's Sprint race at Spa-Francorchamps for making contact with the side of Sergio Perez' Red Bull at the exit of Stavelot on lap 7.

The front left of the Mercedes made a hole in the side of the RB19 that compromised that car's downforce, leading to an early retirement from the race for Perez on the next lap.

Perez blamed Hamilton for being in too much of a hurry, saying that the incident had ruined his race. But Hamilton had an altogether different view of what occurred, calling it a typical racing incident.

"It's tricky conditions out there, we are all trying our best," he told the media in the paddock after the end of the Sprint, which had been delayed due to heavy rain just before the start.

The race started on full wet tyres behind the safety car, but conditions soon improved and all 20 cars made stops during the first two laps of green flag running to switch to intermediate tyres.

That promoted Perez to fourth ahead of Hamilton, before the safety car returned for an encore performance after Fernando Alonso spun out. When the race resumed soon after, Hamilton piled the pressure on Perez resulting in contact.

• Read also: Verstappen wins wet Belgian sprint as Hamilton and Perez clash

"It wasn't intentional," he insisted. "He went wide and was slow through turn 14 and I got a great exit. I went up the inside and was more than half-a-car alongside him, and we ended up just coming together."

Hamilton said he was merely learning from the lessons of his F1 idol, three time F1 champion Ayrton Senna. "If you are not going for a gap you're no longer racing, as Ayrton once said.

"That's what I did," he reiterated. "When I watched it back it felt like a racing incident to me. I just feel like we were in a racing period where we don’t want to be deterred from racing, you know? But I got a penalty for it."

The five second penalty meant that instead of being classified in fourth place behind Alpine's Pierre Gasly, he dropped behind the two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc as well as McLaren's Lando Norris.

As a result, instead of claiming five points today he picks up just one, after finishing ahead of Mercedes team mate George Russell in eighth.

"In a race like this, I don't really care too much," Hamilton shrugged. "Ultimately it doesn't make a huge difference. The difference between fourth and seventh in a Sprint where you don't get a lot of points means it's not punishing.

"It would have been nice to finish fourth, but I don't care. I want to win, [so] Fourth and seventh doesn't make [much] difference."

"The contact between Lewis and Perez I saw as a racing incident more than penalty worthy," confirmed Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. "They were side-by-side and we want to see people racing. Nevertheless that was the decision.

Sunday's race will see battle resumed with Perez: the Red Bull is on the front row for the Belgian GP with Hamilton right behind in third hoping that the lessons learned from today's race will help him finish on the podium.

The positives are that our pace has been good," he said. "I hope I'll be able to fight with the Ferraris and Perez."

Meanwhile Russell continued to struggle with the consequences of being handed a high downforce 'barn door' strategy by the team on Friday, which he can't change under parc ferme conditions.

"I think P8 was the maximum we could achieve from a shortened Sprint today," said Russell, who starts tomorrow's race from the same position again. "Unfortunately after a bad qualifying this is all you can really get.

"It also wasn't easy out there in those conditions," he continued. It was my decision to pit one lap after the safety car had come in and that was perhaps not the correct one.

"We came out P12 after the pit stop and got back to P8. To recover those positions in such a short race is positive. With two more laps, we could have possibly got up to P5. But it is what it is, and I'm relatively satisfied.

Russell also highlighted a silver lining to the day: "The car was really quick; I think we were probably the second fastest out there behind Max.

"The car was good today," agreed Wolff. "I would rather have a quick car that is doing good things and have a less optimal position in the Sprint, than benefitting from other's misfortunes and being lucky.

"Given everything that happened today that we didn't optimise, I'm okay with how our race played out," he added. "If we take similar pace into the race, we will be in a good position to fight for a decent result."

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