Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton said that he had done the gentlemanly thing and apologised to McLaren's Oscar Piastri for their unfortunate collision during the closing laps of the Italian Grand Prix.
The pair had been battling over eighth place on lap 40 when Hamilton finally got ahead, but swept across the front of his rival and squeezed him as he completed the pass through the the Variante della Roggia, damaging the MCL60's front wing.
Piastri was forced to pit for a new wing, dropping him out of the top ten and out of the points in the process. He finished the race in 12th place after setting the fastest lap of the race, but without earning the bonus point.
The stewards deemed Hamilton was responsible for the collision and gave him a five-second time penalty, plus two endorsement points on his licence, putting him on a total of four for the season so far.
Hamilton didn't disagree with the penalty and took full responsibility for the clash. “It was, obviously, my fault,” he told the media in the paddock afterwards. "The incident with Piastri was just unfortunate. I misjudged the gap that I had and it was totally my fault.
“Honestly, he was in my blind spot, I didn’t see [him], he said. "I didn’t realise I hadn’t left enough space, so I apologised to him when I got out of the car and we move on.”
"It actually wasn’t intentional," he insisted. “I got up alongside and just misjudged the gap that I had to the right and clipped him. It could happen at any time.
“I knew shortly afterwards it must have been my fault so I wanted to make sure he knew that it wasn’t intentional,” he added. “That’s what gentleman do, right?
At the time the Australian rookie complained that Hamilton “just turned across me” but was subsequently happy to accept the apology in the same spirit in which it was given. “I can’t ask for anything other than that.
“He just moved a bit too far to the right," he recalled. "I think it’s very easy to do in that corner. It’s very narrow. He came and apologised, so I don’t think there’s much more to it than that.
“The stewards gave their verdict, Lewis apologised to me already, but unfortunately I can’t get my race back. But there’s nothing more I can do or ask for.”
"A pretty disappointing afternoon,” he summed up of the outcome as a whole. “Not a lot went our way. It’s disappointing to come out of that with no points.
Despite the penalty, Hamilton ended the race in sixth place just behind his Mercedes team mate George Russell. He had started the race from eighth on the grid and opted to begin the race on the hard compound and finish on the medium, the reverse of most drivers in Monza.
"We started on the hard tyre today and it was nice to be offset but difficult at the beginning and not so easy to follow in the DRS train," he said, having spent much of the afternoon staring at the back of the two McLarens.
“It was pretty boring from the start. It was just dead straight, just following the cars ahead, tyres overheating, balance issues.
"I knew that I had slightly more pace than them in the first stint, and hoped I could get them on the second one," he said. "There was a big gap to catch after the stop. I was worried my tyres would go off when I caught them, but fortunately theirs did the same.
“I think it was a little bit better at the end, once we had the off-set on tyres and I was having to catch that gap and have a little bit of a race with the guys.”
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