Lewis Hamilton expects the FIA should take a “very strict” stance on Max Verstappen’s failure to slow for yellow flags in today’s qualifying session.

Verstappen, who qualified on pole position, is under investigation for failing to slow down for yellow flags which were waved at the scene of Valtteri Bottas’s crash at the end of Q3.

Hamilton was the first driver to pass Bottas’s crashed car. “Valtteri was just ahead of me,” he said. “So I came around the corner and I saw bits on the ground.

“There was no flag at the time and I saw bits on the ground and I was quite hesitant because obviously something had happened ahead. And so I wasn’t I hesitated getting back on power. And by the time I realised that there was a crash, I was basically past it.”

Verstappen admitted he did not back off as he passed the crash and the Red Bull driver improved his lap time. Hamilton believes the FIA will take a dim view of his actions.

“I think it’s very important that the FIA are very, very strict with the double yellow flags. We’ve seen experiences in the past – I remember like Monaco, for example, where you see the GP2 driver [Pastor Maldonado in World Series by Renault] take out a marshal, a volunteer who puts their lives on the line to make sure the driver is safe on the road.

“If you’ve got people who are just being careless and not abiding by the rules… He actually didn’t even need to stay flat out. He’d already got pole, basically. I think the FIA need to be very, very strict on that.

“I don’t know what else to say it but luckily there were no marshals on the track. For all he knew Valtteri could have been in the middle of the circuit and the marshals could have been there. That’s what a double yellow flag generally means, it could be a massive incident ahead. So the fact that he ignored it means is not great, but it’s done

“Hopefully the right calls are made and put in place. The drivers need to know to respect those things.”

Although yellow flags were waved at the scene of the crash, Verstappen did not appear to have a yellow light signal on his steering wheel. But Hamilton said this is “no excuse” for failing to slow.

“It doesn’t matter where the yellow is. You can see double yellow flags waving in general but I don’t think that’s a good enough excuse. The fact is he said he saw it. So he saw the flags and then decided not to react to it.”

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2019 F1 season