{"id":811389,"date":"2026-07-20T02:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T02:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/811389\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T02:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T02:54:10","slug":"f1-news-2026-belgian-grand-prix-lewis-hamilton-hits-ferrari-mechanic-fined-50k-for-unsafe-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/811389\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News 2026: Belgian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton hits Ferrari mechanic, fined $50k for unsafe release"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton<\/a> has been fined nearly $50,000 AUD by the FIA after a chaotic pit stop resulted in his Ferrari<\/a> mechanic being struck after an unsafe release.<\/p>\n

Hamilton pitted during the virtual safety car period at the Belgian Grand Prix, serving a five-second penalty he picked up after a first-lap incident with George Russell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton hits a mechanic.\u00a0Fox Sports<\/p>\n

Receiving a tyre change, the 41-year-old also expected a front wing adjustment only for confusion to continue as the team released him early. <\/p>\n

The mechanic operating a front wing tool moved forward into the path of the car\u2019s front-right tyre as Hamilton was given the green light to be released from his pit box.<\/p>\n

As a result, when Hamilton drove forward, the mechanic was struck and fell to the floor. The Ferrari driver immediately stopped and the mechanic was dragged back by Ferrari pit crew members. <\/p>\n

He was not injured in the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe green light went and so I went,\u201d Hamilton said afterwards to\u00a0Sky Sports F1.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re looking over here [to the left at the lights] you\u2019re not looking over there so that\u2019s more probably on the team, ultimately.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when it happened, then I noticed him and I stopped and it just went through my mind in that moment was back when Kimi hit [a mechanic] and broke a leg and my heart really sank for a second.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really grateful he\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moment Hamilton is referring to is from the 2018 Bahrain Grand Prix when then-Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen drove over the leg of mechanic Francesco Cigorini<\/a>, who suffered a double bone break.<\/p>\n

One third of the fine will be suspended for 12 months on the condition that Hamilton does not commit a similar offence. Hamilton also keeps his fourth-place finish in Spa. The FIA has also required Ferrari to send a report to the FIA within 14 days about the incident, including protocols the team will put in place to stop a similar incident happening again. <\/p>\n

The team wrote that the mistake was due to an \u201cinappropriately late instruction for the wing adjustment, a lack of clear communication and the mechanic\u2019s failure to notice the green light.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton has been fined nearly $50,000 AUD by the FIA after a chaotic pit stop resulted in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-811389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}