Formula 1 fans have debated seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton's Hungarian Grand Prix penalty.
Hamilton was handed a five-second penalty for exceeding the pitlane speed limit. Making his third pitstop under a virtual safety car while fighting current championship leader Kimi Antonelli for a podium spot, Hamilton was clocked at 80.1km/h, just 0.1km/h over the limit.
He crossed the line in fourth but he slipped to fifth behind his team-mate Charles Leclerc when the penalty was applied.
The penalty led to a discussion among fans. While the majority of fans agreed that the incident did deserve a penalty, some argued that if the speeding resulted in a five-second penalty for Hamilton, then Carlos Sainz should have received a harsher punishment for his collision with Oscar Piastri.
Piastri, who had been leading the race, was making his way through the backmarkers after pitting. While the Australian driver was doing so, Sainz had contact with him, which cost the McLaren driver the lead. Piastri ultimately retired from the race due to a gearbox failure. Sainz was also handed a five-second penalty.
"0.1 gets you the same penalty as taking out the race leader. Hahaha I'm done," one fan commented on Reddit, while another added: "If there was no penalty, everyone would speed in the pitlane. Lewis' penalty was fair, and it was 100% driver error. Sainz, I agree, should have been extremely harshly punished: I would give a stop/go penalty and four points."
Others argued that Hamilton should not have pitted under the virtual safety car, a view the Briton himself shared after the race.
"His race was done the second he entered the pits. At least Charles was behind him, so the points stayed in Ferrari. Still a shame to throw away a podium with that pit," one wrote, and someone else posted: "They shouldn’t have pitted him. Max had no chance of catching him on old softs; Leclerc should have been the only one to pit during VSC."
