Hamilton gets three-place grid penalty for impeding Verstappen

The Ferrari driver had initially secured fourth place in the session but was investigated after Verstappen was forced to abort his flying lap following an incident between Turns 2 and 3. Hamilton was misinformed by his race engineer that Verstappen was on a slow lap when in fact, the Red Bull driver was pushing.

Verstappen will now start fourth, behind pole-sitter Lando Norris, local favourite Charles Leclerc, and Oscar Piastri. Hamilton, now relegated to seventh, will line up behind Isack Hadjar and Fernando Alonso.

On his impeding of Max Verstappen in qualifying, Hamilton said: "Qualifying is so much fun around here. Very difficult to keep out of the way of everybody. I think I was doing a good job of staying out of the way of everyone.

"Then the team said Max was on a fast lap so I was to the left, then they said 'no he's not on a fast lap'. I was just about to get back on power. I accelerated for 10 metres. I was off the line but for sure distracting him," Hamilton admitted.

The FIA-appointed F1 stewards explained their decision in full: “Car 44 was on a slow lap and off the racing line as he was approaching Turn 2. Car 1 was approaching Car 44 on a push lap. The team first informed the driver of Car 44 that Car 1 was on a fast lap. Then they sent another message saying that Car 1 was ‘slowing down’ when in fact Car 1 was always on a push lap and was not ‘slowing down’ as suggested by the team.

“This resulted in Car 44 speeding up and moving into the racing line of Car 1 entering Turn 3. Car 1 had to react to Car 44 appearing to move into the racing line. This meant that Car 1 had to move off the usual racing line and the push lap had to be aborted by Car 1.

“We carefully examined the racing line taken by Car 1 in previous laps at the same area and determined that Car 44 did in fact enter the racing line that Car 1 used in previous push laps. This put it beyond doubt that Car 1 was impeded.

“The driver of Car 44 expressed his displeasure at the incorrect message from the team immediately after the incident. During the hearing, the fact of the team’s incorrect message leading to the incident was accepted by the driver of Car 44.

“As with previous incidents of this nature where a driver has received inaccurate or incomplete information resulting in a car impeding another, the fact that the radio message was the cause of the impeding does not amount to a mitigating factor. We therefore impose the standard penalty of a drop of 3 grid positions.”

Reflecting on his Qualifying session, Hamilton admitted: "Not the greatest day but the weekend has generally been going quite well. It's felt amazing to be in a Ferrari around this track. The car felt really good.

"Today in FP3 to have that shunt was definitely not helpful. "I had a couple of cars ahead and lost some downforce at the rear and lost the back end. The team did an amazing job to recover the car," said Hamilton with reference to his shunt earlier in the day.

Hamilton is a three-time winner of the Monaco Grand Prix. He currently lies P6 in the 2025 F1 World Championship standings, his only podium in the first seven races as a Ferrari driver, was for winning the Chinese Grand Prix Sprint Race.