Bortoleto warned for impeding Hamilton; no further action against Hulkenberg

Gabriel Bortoleto received a warning for unnecessarily impeding Lewis Hamilton during final practice at the Circuit of the Americas.

Hamilton was on a push lap approaching Turn 12 while Bortoleto, on an in-lap, was travelling slowly on the racing line. The stewards said Hamilton had to brake hard and abandon his lap. Bortoleto told them he had overlooked an engineer’s warning, given about 15 seconds earlier, while dealing with his car; on the downhill approach, he said, he saw Hamilton at the last moment, released the brakes and went into the run-off area.

Bortoleto accepted that the move was too late and had compromised Hamilton’s lap. Hamilton’s team representative acknowledged that the incident was not dangerous, but the stewards still found unnecessary impeding and issued a warning, consistent with previous cases of this type in free practice.

In a separate pit-lane incident, the stewards took no further action against Bortoleto’s Audi team-mate Nico Hulkenberg after a practice start involving Lance Stroll. Hulkenberg’s team representative said a car behind had obscured his rear view and that he did not know Stroll was approaching. The representative added that the start procedure could take five to 15 seconds, so Stroll’s proximity would not have been obvious when Hulkenberg began it. Stroll had to brake, but the stewards found the situation was not dangerous and was easily managed by both drivers.