Why Hamilton was penalised — and why Leclerc avoided one at Spa

The Spa stewarding picture is defined by contrast. Lewis Hamilton was penalised for his clash with George Russell, while Charles Leclerc avoided a penalty for his incident with Oscar Piastri. The Race’s reporting makes clear that the stewards were applying different thresholds to two moments that, from a distance, could look close enough to fuel plenty of post-race debate.

Hamilton’s case carried the heavier consequence because he was penalised for the Russell clash. That matters for more than just the immediate race order or the effect on the result. It also shows where the stewards drew the boundary between hard racing and contact that they felt merited a sporting sanction at Spa. The reporting does not suggest this was a routine, automatic call; rather, it was one that depended on how the incident was interpreted by the officials reviewing it.

Leclerc’s case was different, and that difference is the key to understanding why the stewards did not issue a penalty. He avoided a penalty for the Piastri clash, which suggests they saw a meaningful distinction in responsibility, severity, or the way the incident unfolded. The important lesson is not simply that one driver was punished and another was not, but that the stewards can reach different conclusions when the details of each incident are assessed on their own merits. In other words, the same broad category of wheel-to-wheel racing can still produce different outcomes once the evidence is separated and judged carefully.

That is exactly why these calls become such a major talking point after a Grand Prix. Similar-looking incidents do not automatically receive the same outcome, because the stewards are weighing context as well as contact. The sources do not spell out every element of the internal reasoning, and they do not claim that the two incidents were identical in all respects. What they do show is the broad principle in action: Hamilton was penalised for his clash with Russell, while Leclerc’s clash with Piastri did not bring a penalty. For fans, that naturally raises questions about consistency, but it also underlines how much judgment is involved in stewarding.