Lewis Hamilton crossed the line fourth at the Hungaroring and was classified fifth, behind his own team-mate, because he had exceeded the pit-lane speed limit by 0.1km/h. It was his fourth penalty in three race weekends, and it dropped him 50 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli going into the summer break.
His reaction came over team radio, first when the penalty was announced - "Ay, handing out penalties like crazy" - and then again after the chequered flag.
"Every opportunity I give those stewards... every single time they give me a penalty," Hamilton said.
GPFans noted that Hamilton had already published a statement on social media before the race saying he felt he couldn't catch a break with the stewards - that came after he and Antonelli were both handed three-place grid drops on Saturday evening, demoting them to fifth and seventh.
The margin in Sunday's offence was almost invisible. The Race reported the official stewards' document put Hamilton 0.1km/h over the 80km/h limit during a tyre change under the late virtual safety car. Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur suggested the real number was smaller still.
"The limit was 80[km/h], but the FIA agree to 80.05 and we did 80.06," Vasseur said. "When the weekend is going in the wrong direction, 0.1[km/h] is a big delta."
That tolerance used to be far wider. The FIA once allowed up to 80.9km/h before ruling a car had broken the limit, but teams simply treated the upper figure as the target, and the allowance was cut back to the effectively zero-tolerance standard used now.
Vasseur's explanation to Crash.net traced the penalty back several seconds earlier, to the pit box itself.
"It's probably that succession of mistakes that he locked the wheel in the pit stop, that we lost a couple of tenths during the pit stop, and then probably he was trying to be optimum on the pit limit release, and it was a bit too early than the optimum," Vasseur said. "I think it's when you start to do a mistake, it's quite easy to do more than one, and this weekend is a good example."
The chain reaction had a cause: Hamilton was racing Antonelli out of the pits and could not afford two tenths.
Where the story gets more interesting is that Hamilton is not claiming persecution. Asked about the run of decisions, he accepted most of them.
"Ultimately, I think the last three races have been pretty bad from my side. Silverstone was my fault with the start," Hamilton said. "The last race, even the driver that I collided with [Russell] said that it was just a racing incident. That one they dished out. I think that one was not needed, but that's cost me a lot of points."
On the Hungary grid drop for impeding Oscar Piastri in qualifying, he took the blame himself. "I take responsibility ultimately, being on track, I should have looked in my mirrors. I thought everyone would have been on the end of the fast lap. And the information I got was right at the end, right by the time he was behind me. So that was a communication error."
The Race's analysis pushed back on the idea that title pressure explains the run, pointing out that the Hungary grid drop was procedural and only the pit-lane speeding looks like a clear consequence of over-ambition. Vasseur made a similar argument.
"It's difficult to put all the penalties in the same basket," the Ferrari boss said, adding that he still regards the Spa contact with George Russell as a racing incident - and that he would ask Hamilton to do exactly the same thing again.
The wider Ferrari problem was not the stewards at all. The SF-26 arrived at a circuit that suited it, topped Friday practice, and finished fourth and fifth. "The pace was decent, but we were completely unable to overtake Max at the beginning, then Piastri," Vasseur said. "Point taken for the rest of the season."
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*Originally published on [Formula 1 News](https://newsformula.one/article/hamiltons-fourth-penalty-in-three-weekends-0-1km-h-too-fast). Visit for full coverage.*