FIA race director Charlie Whiting has defended the stewards late decision to look into Lewis Hamilton's pit entry that wasn't, after he bailed out at the very last moment.
Hamilton was called into the pits after the Safety Car was called out following Sebastian Vettel's crash, but confusion over team radio between Hamilton and his race engineer Pete Bonnington meant the Mercedes driver cut across the pit entry to remain out, mirroring Kimi Raikkonen ahead.
Hamilton went on to win the race from team-mate Valtteri Bottas with no mention that the stewards were looking at the incident until more than an hour after the conclusion of the race. It then took a further 90 minutes to come to a decision.
Whiting says the decision to investigate after the race, rather than during, happened because there was only a handful of laps left, and then things were further delayed when torrential rain hit the circuit which flooded the paddock and several access tunnels.
"It just takes a little bit of time to make sure that, if you’re going to call a team [before the stewards], you have good reason for calling them.
"We wanted to wait until after the race to take a look at it because we were getting quite close to the end of it. Then there was all the rain and thunderstorms and everything like that," he explained.
"By the time everything had calmed down we needed to have a good look at it and the stewards decided they should discuss it with the team."
Fans took to social media to air their views on the decision which saw Hamilton keep his victory after being handed a reprimand, whereas in 2016 Raikkonen was handed a five-second time penalty at the European GP in Azerbaijan. Whiting explained the two incidents were different.
"I don’t think there is a specific precedent [set]. Kimi a couple of years ago in Baku got a five second penalty, but that was quite a lot different in that particular scenario."
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