“He didn’t touch it,” Fan footage dismisses speculation of Lewis Hamilton handling the rear wing of Sergio Perez’s RB-18
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Lewis Hamilton in the alleged photo
After a leaked picture, Lewis Hamilton was seen touching the rear wing of Sergio Perez’s Red Bull which had made it to the podium.
This incident got highlighted as Max Verstappen was charged a fine of 50,000 euros last year in Brazil after he was seen touching the rear wing of Hamilton’s winning Mercedes of the 2021 season. But nothing similar happened to Hamilton after he allegedly did the exact same thing.
However, it was later cleared up that Hamilton in fact “did not touch” the RB18’s rear wing. Mercedes quickly went into denial after the release of the picture, which made it look very obvious that he was touching the wing of the car. Stewards did not take any action on the incident.
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Just a few hours after the allegation, the complete video of the incident was released, which made it pretty much clear that the British was just going from behind the car, whilst making sure he does not touch it, and he clearly did not.
The video seems to be taken after some time of the podium celebration as the area looks different from what the podium looks like.
The regulation from International Sporting Code clearly state that only track officials and members of the FIA are allowed to touch any part of any car while it is in parc ferme.
Max Verstappen clearly ignored this last year and had a heavy fine for doing so.
Interestingly enough, allegations on Lewis were soon started out to be controversial by the fans.
“…his hand isn’t on it,” Mercedes explain the happenings of the pictures.
Mercedes said in a statement that it certainly looked like Hamilton was touching the wing, but he actually did not, as can be seen in the video.
”Some people seem to think he is touching the wing, but his hand isn’t on it. At each end of the flap, you can see the white dot for legality – and the bracket which allows the flap to pivot when the DRS opens. Some people seem to think one of those brackets is his thumb – but it’s clearly not, as it’s the same on both sides,” Mercedes told GPblog.
As of now, there are no investigations going on about the incident, but a lot of controversy has emerged as the video is not very clear and fans are divided over whether he touched the wing or not. However, it is confirmed that Hamilton did not actually touch the rear wing of Sergio Perez’s RB18.
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Gunaditya Tripathi
(274 Articles Published)