Lewis Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg are under investigation for failing to meet the minimum tyre pressures set out by tyre supplier Pirelli following recent failures in Belgium.
Hamilton, who won the race, was found to have an illegal tyre pressure on his left-rear, 0.3 PSI below the minimum pressure of 19.5 PSI following a random check on the grid.
Meanwhile Rosberg’s car, which failed to finish due to an engine failure, was also found to have an illegal pressure in the same tyre, 1.1 PSI below the limit.
The team were notified of the problem several laps from the finish, explaining why Mercedes told Hamilton to speed up to open a 25-second gap to second-placed Sebastian Vettel should he serve a post-race time penalty.
However such a technical infringement could amount to a harsher penalty, such as disqualification.
Speaking about the issue, technical chief Paddy Lowe said: “We don’t understand it to be honest. All I know is we set our pressures fully supervised by the Pirelli engineer, he was perfectly happy with them, as they were set. We’ll go and investigate.”
Asked about the calls for Hamilton to create a gap, Lowe added: “I’d call it an abundance of caution, because we haven’t done anything wrong. We thought ‘let’s make a gap’.
“We’ve been summoned to the stewards so we’ll go there and explain it.”
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