Lewis Hamilton turned in his best qualifying session of the 2025 Formula 1 season Saturday in Monte Carlo, putting his SF-25 on the second row as he finished fourth in the session at the Monaco Grand Prix.
But he will not start there.
Hamilton has been given a three-place grid penalty for Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix. The penalty comes as a result of an incident from the first segment of Saturday’s qualifying session.
Race officials summoned Hamilton to meet with the stewards following qualifying, for an incident in Q1 involving Red Bull driver Max Verstappen. That hearing was scheduled for 5:55 p.m. local time/ 11:55 a.m. Eastern time. Stewards summoned Verstappen as well, along with a team representative from both Ferrari and Red Bull.
Shortly after that hearing concluded, stewards issued a decision that dropped Hamilton from fourth on the grid, to seventh:
At the hearing it was outlined that Ferrari “first informed the driver of Car 44 [Hamilton] that Car 1 [Verstappen] was on a fast lap. Then they sent another message saying that Far 1 was ‘slowing down’ when in fact Car 1 was always on a push alp and was not ‘slowing down’ as suggested by the team.”
As noted in the decision, during the hearing Hamilton “expressed his displeasure at the incorrect message from the team immediately after the incident.” In addition, Verstappen “accepted” the explanation from Hamilton, that the team had given the Ferrari driver an “incorrect message.”
Speaking with the media after qualifying, Verstappen noted that it was not Hamilton’s fault, and that it was the “team’s mistake:”
Max Verstappen: “But then I saw immediately that the team [Ferrari] told [Lewis Hamilton] that I was driving slow, while I was clearly driving fast. So it’s not Lewis’ fault. I mean, I quickly chatted to Lewis already about it.”
“Yeah, it’s very simple, but of course it can’t… pic.twitter.com/1rHNovaISM
— sim (@simsgazette) May 24, 2025
Radio messages from the incident indicate that the team told Hamilton that Verstappen was “slowing down” behind him, but instead Verstappen was indeed on a push lap.
Max Verstappen was NOT happy with Lewis Hamilton during Q1 in Monaco!
The Red Bull F1 driver accuses the Ferrari man of blocking him at Massenet ❌ pic.twitter.com/14M0d79BbZ
— Crash.net – Formula 1 (@CRASH_NET_F1) May 24, 2025
While Hamilton now starts a bit further back on the grid than his qualifying spot, he could have an opportunity in the Monaco Grand Prix to pick up a few spots. While overtaking is notoriously difficult in the race, this year’s new two-stop rule could give the Ferrari driver a chance to pick up a few places, if Ferrari gets the strategy right …
Yes, yes I know …
