Sir Lewis Hamilton has blamed Mercedes for the near-misses he had with Nikita Mazepin and Pierre Gasly during Free Practice Three (FP3) at the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The AlphaTauri and Haas drivers both had to take evasive action as a result of Hamilton driving very slowly while on a cooldown lap around the tight, high-speed Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
Immediately after the near-misses, Hamilton got on the team radio to express his frustration with Mercedes not letting him know that a car was fast approaching.
“You didn’t tell me, man. I had no idea he was coming,” the seven-time World Champion said.
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Meanwhile, race director Michael Masi described Hamilton’s slow driving around the perilous circuit as “not great at all.”
“Not great at all, which is why I will deal with it with the team directly,” Masi answered when asked by Haas for his thoughts on the FP3 incident involving their driver and Hamilton.
“I’ve also had a chat to them here because there was no flags of any form shown through that sector for Nikita or Lewis,” he added.
Earlier, the FIA warned drivers against excessively slowing down in certain parts of the track in a bid to build a gap to the driver in front before starting a flying lap.
“Any driver intending to create a gap in front of him in order to get a clear lap should not attempt to do this around Turn 23 through to Turn 25,” the FIA warned in the Race Director’s revised notes on Saturday.
“Any driver seen to have done this will be reported to the stewards as being in breach of Article 27.4 of the Sporting Regulations,” it added.
Additionally, the notes said that all drivers must stay below a 1:49:00 between the Safety Car lines, as shown on the pit lane map.
This is to stop drivers from driving “excessively” slowly on cooldown laps or reconnaissance laps.
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