There’s nothing unusual in drivers messing up the pre-race routine and getting punished for that. Lewis Hamilton himself picked up two penalties at Sochi in 2020 for misinterpreting then-race director Michael Masi’s instructions on practice starts, performing them in a place that the stewards deemed inappropriate – and therefore had to serve two five-second penalties during the race.
There have been more examples like that in recent years, which makes Hamilton’s Sunday penalty particular in the sense that the stewards only announced their decision after the race.
