FIA refusing to answer why it ignored F1 guidelines with Lewis Hamilton’s penalty at Spa

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The FIA’s stewards raised a lot of eyebrows in F1 after only fining Ferrari for an unsafe release in the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix that saw Lewis Hamilton drive into a mechanic.

Hamilton had a troubled time at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday, as he settled for a P4 finish in the Ardennes forest. The 41-year-old even came home 15.293 seconds adrift of his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in second place, who briefly led and fought for the victory at Spa.

The Belgian GP started on the wrong foot as far as Hamilton was concerned, after he tagged George Russell of Mercedes into a race-ending spin at Les Combes on the first lap. The FIA’s stewards slapped Hamilton with a 5s penalty for hitting Russell, given he briefly lost control.

The FIA will not clarify why Ferrari were only fined for Lewis Hamilton’s unsafe release

Hamilton’s penalty for hitting Russell in the Belgian GP also sparked a second consequence for Ferrari. The team were later fined €30,000 (£25.5k), with €10k (£8.5k) suspended for a year, as Hamilton hit a mechanic when exiting his pit box after he was shown a green light.

READ MORE: Kimi Antonelli overtakes Charles Leclerc to win the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix

Ferrari decided to pit Leclerc and Hamilton during a virtual safety car (VSC) period on Lap 20 of the Belgian GP. But as Hamilton also had to serve his initial 5s penalty before Ferrari could change his tyres, they delayed relaying his request for a front wing adjustment until after it.

Delaying Hamilton’s request due to the penalty put Ferrari’s entire pit stop out of sequence, and the mechanic only moved in to adjust his wing when the Scuderia gave him the all clear to drive off. It was a slam-dunk unsafe release, and yet Ferrari’s fine raised a lot of eyebrows.

The FIA’s guidelines for F1 penalties state that any unsafe release from a pit stop during any race merits either a 5s, a 10s or a drive-through penalty and does not list any possible fines. A fine is only listed as a possible penalty for any unsafe release during practice or qualifying.

Yet Pit Lane Chronicle reports that the FIA has refused to clarify why the F1 governing body’s stewards seemingly ignored its own penalty guidelines, and only fined Ferrari for Hamilton’s unsafe release in the Belgian GP when the Briton should have been the one with a penalty.

It would have been harsh to penalise Hamilton with an in-race penalty for an incident he did not cause. But F1 drivers and teams are one united front, and what one side does affects the other. And yet only Ferrari were penalised for causing Hamilton’s unsafe release in Belgium.

A 5s penalty would have cost Hamilton one position to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who finished the Belgian GP 1.743s behind the Ferrari racer. A 10s penalty would have also seen Hamilton fall behind Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar and McLaren’s Lando Norris to finish the Belgian GP in P7.

Given that the FIA’s stewards only hit Ferrari with a part-suspended fine, you would suspect that a 10s penalty for Hamilton – let alone a drive-through penalty – was never on the cards. But the FIA must explain why its stewards did not hand Hamilton a second 5s penalty at Spa.