Lewis Hamilton has been warned by the Formula 1 stewards and Ferrari fined €10,000 after the seven-time world champion impeded Gabriel Bortoleto during second practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia on Friday.
The incident happened at 16:24 local time on the entry to Turn 9 at Sepang. Hamilton, travelling slowly at around 80-85 km/h, moved from the middle of the track towards the racing line as Bortoleto approached from behind at approximately 240 km/h on an out-lap, a closing speed of roughly 155-160 km/h. The Audi driver was forced to brake and take evasive action.
Hamilton told the stewards he could not see properly out of his right-hand mirror, which had been damaged. The stewards accepted the mirror damage as a mitigating factor, along with the fact that Bortoleto was not on a push lap, and noted that the Audi driver remained in control of the situation. They therefore stopped short of classifying the incident as dangerous impeding and issued the standard penalty for impeding in a practice session: a warning.
