The F1 stewards have explained their decision to give Lewis Hamilton a costly penalty at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton went off track while battling with Max Verstappen (Image: Getty)

The Formula 1 stewards have explained why they penalised Lewis Hamilton during the Mexico City Grand Prix. The Brit was placed under investigation after he went off track during the race while battling with Max Verstappen, following which the Dutchman called for his rival to be punished.

And the stewards eventually did exactly what he wanted, though he was initially investigated and cleared for not using the proper escape road at the side of the track, as per the race director’s instructions.

Explaining why they did not punish him for that, the stewards said in a statement: “Car 44 [Hamilton] locked brakes on the approach to turn four and went into the run-off area.

“The stewards determined that the car was carrying too much speed to enable the driver to use the prescribed escape road and for that reason the driver had a justifiable reason for failing to comply with the race director’s instruction. Given the circumstances, the stewards took no further action.”However, they found the Ferrari driver guilty of having left the track and gained an advantage from doing so and dished out a 10-second time penalty. Hamilton was running third at the time of that punishment and, by the time he had served the penalty at his first pit stop, several cars were ahead when he re-emerged onto the track and he ended up finishing down in eighth place.

Explaining that call, the stewards said in a separate document: “Car 44 locked brakes, left the track at turn four and used the grass area while rejoining in the direction of turn five. As the driver was unable to follow the route prescribed by the race director along the ‘yellow line’ due to an excess of speed, no breach of the race director’s notes is deemed to have occurred.

“However, by leaving the track and cutting the corner, the driver gained a lasting advantage, overtaking car 1 [Verstappen] and failing to give back the position thereafter. The standard penalty for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage is therefore imposed.”

Hamilton was furious when told over the radio of his penalty and replied to race engineer Riccardo Adami: “That’s such s*** man. The grip is so small there… the grip there is so low!”

He cut a frustrated figure in the media pen and did not want to engage too much in interviews. He said of his result: “It was fun at the start but didn’t end up the way I hoped. But that’s motor racing.”

And when pressed on the incident which led to his penalty, Hamilton added: “It was very, very dirty off-line and I did the best I could to keep the car on track and then to bring it back to the track safely. I got some points at least.”