Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, Red Bull Ring, 2020

Hamilton saw no yellow flag when Bottas went off

2020 Austrian Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton said he didn’t see a yellow flag when he passed his team mate Valtteri Bottas’s car during their final runs in qualifying.

Bottas was running immediately ahead of Hamilton when they began their final runs, but ran wide at the exit of turn four. He ended up on the grass, where he spun.

Daniel Ricciardo, who was running directly behind Hamilton, did encounter a yellow flag. But Hamilton, who improved his time on his final run, said he didn’t see one.

Asked if a yellow flag was visible Hamilton said: “Not that I saw, no.

“I came around the corner, I got on the power and I thought that Valtteri perhaps had just gone wide and come back on the track further up the road. So I was looking out for the gravel on the track and for a car on the track, but there was nothing there.

“So I continued. Then I saw as I was going to turn six that Valtteri was much further to the left. So it happened pretty quickly, there was a pretty big puff of dust.”

Hamilton’s onboard camera appears not have been working during his final run. He came within 12 thousandths of a second of beating Bottas to pole position.

However Bottas believes he could have improved his time if he’d completed his final flying lap.

“I think there was a bit more time on the table,” he said. “I think I was slightly up on my second lap until I ran a big wide in turn four on the gravel and went off the track.

“So that was my mistake. It wasn’t quite perfect but obviously it was super-close with Lewis, so I’m glad it was it was good enough.”

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3 comments on “Hamilton saw no yellow flag when Bottas went off”

  1. Hamilton admitted in the post-Qualifying interview that he saw a huge cloud of dust and Valtteri driving on the grass and then going back onto the track, and looking at the video you can see the huge cloud of dust in the air. It just doesn’t seem right that the driver of the first car behind Valtteri wasn’t warned there was a hazard ahead. They shouldn’t have to make rules for this sort of thing, but it seems to me that is what is required because we have fastest lap times that were allowed to stand. The rules would have to be along the lines of having all lap times on that lap be annulled unless there’s good reasons for them to stand.
    If Christian Horner’s statement earlier in Qualifying of being able to see Lewis’s on track performance instantly is true, then all the team principals will know exactly how much he slowed down and where on the track he went slow. Maybe the Yellow Flag system needs to activate a warning light system within the cars (with yellow lights being activated outside the car so everyone else knows the yellow light system inside the car has been activated).

    1. I don’t think that is the question. Hamilton has been quite lucky lately when it comes to yellow flags in Q, he is generally on top of the incidents, before the flag comes out, as you pointed out, but, because of this he both knows what happened (he confirmed what he saw) and he is not forced to slow down because the flag hasn’t come out. Sure the flag should come out as quickly as possible however the flag’s real value is for those who are not aware there is danger ahead.
      We might argue Lewis should have slowed down regardless, Lewis did nothing wrong though because of this yellow flag idiosincracy.

  2. What worries me most is that this looks like F1 manipulating the driver championship.
    From what I could see the yellow was way out to the left so more visible to those coming to the corner, not someone already in it. It seemed that the view down the track was a green flag. No offence! Stewards pushed to the decision by odious Christian Horner.
    Don’t even get me started on Alex Albon. What is the definition of the pass was already done? The only way Hamilton could avoid Albon’s lunge was to brake before the corner. As it was, Albon arrived too late. Hamilton didn’t open the steering, and any more braking would have bought the backend round taking them both off. Again, no offence so one big fix.

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