Lewis Hamilton finished the Miami Sprint eighth on the road but soon had the point he scored taken away from him after the stewards found he had sped in the pit lane
Lewis Hamilton was stripped of the point he scored in the Miami Grand Prix Sprint when he was handed a post-race penalty.
Hamilton finished the short-form race eighth on the road after a last-lap overtake on Yuki Tsunoda. But the Japanese racer inherited that final points-paying spot when the Mercedes star was punished after the race.
Shortly after taking the chequered flag, it emerged that Hamilton had sped in the pit lane earlier in the event. As a result, he was given a drive-through penalty which was converted into 20 seconds being added onto his time.
That punishment dropped him well out of contention for the points and meant he had nothing to show for his efforts. Mercedes failed to score a single point overall with team-mate George Russell also well off the pace.
It came after Kevin Magnussen was given three separate penalties for his illegal defending against Hamilton throughout the Sprint. The Dane raced very hard against his rival to help team-mate Nico Hulkenberg to build a gap ahead.
And it worked as Hulkenberg scored two points for Haas. And even though he did not enjoy racing the way he did, Magnussen said he had no regrets about his actions as it had helped the team to secure a valuable result.
The 31-year-old said: “All the penalties were well deserved, no doubt about it. But I had to play the game again. I was in a very good position behind Nico there and, at the beginning of the race, I gained a lot of positions and was up in P8.
“I was protected well from Lewis because I had DRS from Nico and had good pace, I felt. But then Nico cut the chicane and I lost DRS – Nico could have given that back to protect me because we would easily have been P7 and P8, but instead I was really vulnerable to Lewis.
“I started fighting with him like crazy and I had to create the gap like I did in Jeddah, using these stupid tactics which I don’t like doing. But at the end of the day I did my job, I’m a team player and Nico scored his points because I got that gap for him. Lewis and [Yuki] Tsunoda couldn’t catch him. It’s not the way I like to go racing at all, but it’s what I had to do today.”
Hamilton responded surprisingly by saying: “I think that’s really honest of him and pretty cool. I don’t have… we had a good race. It was a little bit on the edge but it felt hard and I love racing hard. For me, I wasn’t really p***ed – sorry, frustrated, or anything. That’s what you do to work as a team.”