06 September 2023 , 19:47
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Lewis Hamilton "just about" remains on Oscar Piastri's Christmas card list despite the collision which ruined his Italian Grand Prix.
The Aussie was on for another points finish in what is turning out to be a very impressive rookie Formula 1 season. But then came that clash with Hamilton, which left his McLaren with a broken front wing and in need of a second trip to the pit lane.
That effectively ended his hopes of a points finish. And he was definitely out of the top 10 by the time he picked up a five-second time penalty for a separate incident involving Liam Lawson.
Hamilton was given a similar punishment for that clash with Piastri. But it proved inconsequential as he finished comfortably ahead of Alex Albon and did not lose sixth place when the penalty was applied.
But he did own up to being at fault, and made a point of going over to Piastri to apologise after they had stopped their cars in parc ferme. And that was enough to appease the Aussie, it seems.
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Asked if the seven-time world champion is still on his Christmas card list, Piastri replied: "Yeah. I mean, he apologised immediately and he got a penalty for it. So I'm happy he owned up to it, at least.
"Of course, ideally, it wouldn't have happened, but it's quite easy to do in that corner where you know, we've seen it plenty of times. So he's still on there, just about."
While Piastri seemed to be satisfied with the penalty given to Hamilton, not everyone shares that opinion. Paul Stoddart, who owned the Minardi F1 team before it was sold to Red Bull to become what is today branded as AlphaTauri, thinks the stewards should have come down harder on the Brit.
"The punishment for Lewis Hamilton for his collision with Oscar Piastri was not enough," he told RacingNews365. "In such a situation where it was so clear, it should have been a drive-through [penalty].
"It's very difficult when you're sitting in the stewards' room and you're trying to determine the right penalty. They've been pretty consistent with the five-second penalties, but there are times – and this was one of them – when five seconds isn't good enough when you look at the other driver's race.
"With Lewis it was not the first time he did it. At Silverstone we saw [Max] Verstappen in the wall [in 2021] and that was a drive-through penalty. And, for me, at Monza it was a drive-through that would have completely ruined his race, just like Piastri."