Juan Pablo Montoya says it’s ‘weird’ that Lewis Hamilton was penalised when another driver wasn’t

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Lewis Hamilton received a five-second penalty at the start of the British Grand Prix that changed the course of his race.

Hamilton inched ever so slightly forward in his grid box before the fifth light went out, which saw him sanctioned for a false start.

Speaking in the post-race press conference, Hamilton said the error was down to a slight, unintentional movement of his right hand, which is visible in the onboard footage.

Juan Pablo Montoya confused over Lewis Hamilton penalty in light of Valtteri Bottas incident

While Hamilton, who was complaining of understeer, didn’t have the pace to keep up with the top two of Charles Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli, he looked comfortable in third.

It was only because of the penalty that he dropped to fifth behind George Russell and Max Verstappen. The ensuing battles cost him significant race time.

Considering that he emerged just a car length behind Russell when he made his late pit stop under the safety car, one could argue that the false start cost Hamilton a P2.

Martin Brundle and David Coulthard agreed that the penalty was harsh, and F1TV pundit Juan Pablo Montoya flagged what he saw as an inconsistency.

He was seemingly referring to Valtteri Bottas’ launch at the 2020 Hungarian GP, when the then Mercedes driver moved before the lights had gone out, but he wasn’t penalised.

Montoya said on F1’s post-race show: “The weird thing for me is, he moved and I thought, Bottas a few years ago, he moved, stopped, the lights went out and he went. When you see the replay, it’s kind of the same thing.”

• READ MORE: George Russell admits Lewis Hamilton would have overtaken him without safety car at Silverstone

The FIA have built a window of tolerance into their detection systems. Bottas stayed within it, as Sebastian Vettel had done in Japan the previous year, but Hamilton didn’t.

The margins are naturally extremely fine, but ultimately objective. While Hamilton stopped after the initial movement, he did then overtake Kimi Antonelli at the start to gain second place.