Whiting explains why Hamilton wasn't penalised for qualifying near-miss

FIA race director Charlie Whiting has explained why Lewis Hamilton wasn't penalised for his swerve in front of Sergey Sirotkin during qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix. Hamilton saw the Williams driver late and in trying to move out of the way, inadvertently swerved into the Russian's path forcing evasive action from him.

The incident wasn't punished or deemed an offence by the race stewards despite the dramatic moment. Afterwards, Whiting explained to media why Hamilton escaped any punishment.

“Lewis was told Sergey was behind him but he was on an out-lap, so Lewis was thinking, ‘OK we’re fine here, I can do my usual routine, get a gap to the car in front’,” Whiting said.

“(Then) Sergey was coming through Turn 11 flat out. Lewis saw him coming and thought ‘There’s a car on a fast lap the team didn’t tell me about’. So, he went to move over to let him through and Sergey had already committed left. That was the reason for the incident.

“For me it was just an unfortunate misunderstanding. It was clear immediately to me what happened, that nobody had done anything wrong. I discussed it with the stewards, asked if they wanted it investigated and they felt no investigation was warranted.

“It would quite possibly have been quite a big shunt, but if you looked at the causes they would be the same. That’s why I would have thought the stewards would have come to the same conclusion.”

Hamilton went on to win the race at Interlagos and in doing so, wrapped up the constructors' championship for his Mercedes team whilst Sirotkin finished P16, two laps behind the leaders.