F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Will Be Fined After Abu Dhabi Protest
After the controversy between Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at the end of the 2021 F1 season, Hamilton and team principal Toto Wolff didn’t attend the annual FIA gala out of protest. Now, the British driver has announced how his fine his going to be used by the FIA, and it turns out it’s a great outcome.
The driver’s failure to attend the gala is a break of Article 6.6 of the sporting regulations, or more specifically, “drivers finishing first, second and third in the championship must be present at the annual FIA Prize Giving ceremony”. Now, moments before the the Bahrain Grand Prix began, Hamilton has revealed that he will be fined, but the fine will be given to a charity.
“There will be some sort of fine regarding the gala,” Hamilton told the press.
“But we’ve worked together to make sure that the money will be put towards youths from underprivileged backgrounds [to help] them get into motorsport engineering.”
After this, Hamilton was asked whether he wants the FIA to fully release the report of the Abu Dhabi GP before this Saturday.
“I think it’s important that as a sport we’re transparent.”
And I had a good meeting with Mohammed last night, who agreed that’s the direction we should take as a sport.
“So I’m looking forward to seeing it come out and people to know that this sport is transparent and we’re learning from what’s happened in the past and we’ll make improvements moving forward.”
Max Verstappen thinks differently however:
“I don’t think we need a full report,” he told fans.
“Of course, always every year it’s good to discuss what will happen the year before and what you can do better. I mean that’s what teams do as well, right?
“You always analyse everything you do. So, yeah, we’ll find out. And of course, if things can be written down in an easier way or a way to understand the wording better [than a full report], it’s good.”
Carlos Sainz of Ferrari is also interested to get his hands on the report:
“Yeah, I’m obviously interested in seeing what comes out of it and what we have learned as a sport and what changes are going to be applied to make sure that such thing doesn’t repeat again.
“But at the same time, I think it’s time to, as soon as it comes out and as soon as it’s analysed and read by everyone, it’s time to move on.
“We are in March 2022 and we are still talking about December 2021 and I think as a sport it’s also time to whatever comes out of that meeting, learn from it and apply the lessons learnt and don’t talk about it too much again because otherwise, we’re just going to spend too much time in the past.”
