Hamilton hit with five-place grid drop for Monza after pre-race yellow flag breach, timing baffles Chandhok
Ferrari’s home weekend has started with a thud: Lewis Hamilton will take a five-place grid penalty at Monza, punishment for a pre-race yellow flag infringement at Zandvoort that wasn’t actually investigated until after the Dutch Grand Prix had finished.
The sequence was odd from the outset. Before the formation lap in Zandvoort, Race Control flagged Hamilton for allegedly failing to slow sufficiently under double-waved yellows at the banked final corner, Turn 14, as cars made their way to the grid. The investigation, however, was parked until after the race. Hamilton then started seventh, slid over the painted lines into Turn 3 on lap 22 and put his Ferrari in the wall. DNF. Trip home. And then the email: five places for Monza, plus penalty points.
“I landed back home and then saw that I got this penalty, and I was really, really shocked,” Hamilton told reporters in Italy. “It is what it is. To get the penalty and get penalty points was pretty hardcore, but I learned from it… I’ll move forwards.”
Hamilton’s defense is straightforward: he says he did lift for the yellows — just not enough for the stewards’ liking. The panel noted mitigation and, according to Sky F1’s Karun Chandhok, reduced what would “normally” be a 10-place penalty to five on that basis.
Chandhok, though, cut through the noise on the rights and wrongs of the incident itself. “A very unusual penalty… but I think it was right to penalise Lewis,” he told Sky, pointing to the reason those flags were out in the first place. With mechanics, camera crews and VIPs thick on the apron as cars peel off for the pits, Race Director’s notes warned of double-waved yellows at Turn 14 and instructed drivers to slow and be prepared to stop. “Look at the line of people… and look at the speed that Lewis came charging past them into the pit lane,” Chandhok said. Safety first, even when the clock hasn’t started.
What left Chandhok scratching his head was the chronology. If the telemetry existed before the lights went out — and in 2025, of course it did — why wait until after the race to act? “All of this information should have been available before the grand prix,” he said. “The teams have live telemetry, the FIA have access to live telemetry… so what I don’t really understand is why this wasn’t looked at before the grand prix, why Lewis wasn’t given the penalty during the Dutch Grand Prix. In which case, he would not have carried that five places here to Monza.”
That’s the sting for Ferrari. Monza is the team’s holy ground, where every grandstand is a drum and every camera lens seems painted red. It’s also a track where grid position matters less than, say, Monaco, but it still matters — especially if you’re trying to control a race, manage tyres in dirty air, or keep out of midfield crossfire on lap one. Five places is five places, and in a field as tight as 2025’s, it can be the difference between leading the tifosi and waving to them from the cool-down room.
Hamilton’s response has been pragmatic enough. He knows why the rule exists, he knows he’ll be judged against it, and he’ll get on with the job. But the episode reopens an old paddock debate: if we can police track limits down to the millimetre and delete laps in real time, why are some decisions still being stapled to the next race? Consistency is one thing; timing is another.
For now, Ferrari will plan around the drop and tune the car for straight-line efficiency and race-day punch. Hamilton’s Saturday target becomes simple: qualify as high as possible, then sharpen the elbows for Sunday. It’s not how he or the team wanted to march into Monza, but it does set up the kind of story this place loves — a fast red car, a long run to Turn 1, and a hunt through the pack with the Curva Grande roaring along.
