Hamilton gesture 'not a very respectful move' - Gutierrez

40

Esteban Gutierrez has told Lewis Hamilton to "respect all of the competitors" after a hand gesture from the championship leader during the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hamilton was held up by Gutierrez late in the race, allowing team-mate Nico Rosberg to close in as the pair were lapping the Haas. As Hamilton passed Gutierrez on the pit straight, he appeared to raise his middle finger at Gutierrez, who was hit with a five-second time penalty for ignoring blue flags.

While Gutierrez admitted he hadn't seen the gesture at the time, when it was put to him it appeared Hamilton raised his middle finger the Mexican replied: "Oh yeah? Not a very respectful move from him I have to say.

"I have spoken to him in the past, I think he is respectful he is the world champion, but he shouldn’t do these kinds of things he should respect all of the competitors, you never know, maybe in the future I will be fighting a championship with him so he has to respect that."

Gutierrez also later tweeted Hamilton along similar lines, and said he didn't feel he held the race leader up unfairly.

"I didn’t ignore them! I simply had two aeroplanes coming from behind, coming very quickly! Of course I was focussed on my race and they came very quickly and I was trying to find the safest place to let them by.

"My intention was to do it in the safest place, of course I was aware of the blue flags, but I was really making the safest place to let them by."

When asked about the incident, Hamilton denied he had raised his middle finger, saying: "I may have accidentally wanted to do that!

"I didn’t, it was just like [motions a frustrated wave]."

REPORT: Hamilton holds off Rosberg to take championship lead

AS IT HAPPENED: Hungarian Grand Prix

Breakfast with ... Marc Surer

Silbermann says ... Birds on the wire

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.