Hamilton one of four under investigation after cutting corner

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emailBy Chris Medland | September 26, 2020 6:52 AM

Lewis Hamilton faces a stewards’ investigation for cutting a corner early in qualifying before going on to take pole position at the Russian Grand Prix.

The race director’s notes state that all drivers must negotiate an array of bollards in the run-off area if they pass “to the left of the orange apex sausage at Turn 2,” or if any part of their car crosses a sausage curb on the exit of the first proper corner on the circuit. While Hamilton only ran slightly deep on one of his early Q1 runs, he passed just behind the Turn 2 apex curb and has been summoned to the stewards over an alleged failure to follow that instruction.

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Romain Grosjean, Kevin Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi also were summoned. All four drivers had similar incidents in Q1, when a change in wind direction seemed to catch a number of drivers out as they first attacked the opening corners.

Grosjean, Magnussen and Latifi were all eliminated in the first part of qualifying, but Hamilton went on to take pole position by over half a second from Max Verstappen. The defending champion also has eight penalty points on his license at this point, with 12 leading to an automatic one-race ban.

Lewis Hamilton, Russian GP, Stewards, Formula 1