Lewis Hamilton: F1 chief APOLOGISES to Mercedes man after Singapore Grand Prix triumph
LEWIS HAMILTON has received an apology from F1 race director Charlie Whiting after the Singapore Grand Prix.
The Brit stretched his lead in the World Drivers' Championship to 40 points after securing a stunning victory under the lights on Sunday.
Hamilton gained pole after an impressive qualifying session on Saturday afternoon and continued in the same vein of form one day later.
However, the four-time world champion faced a scare midway through his race when Sergey Sirotkin and Romain Grosjean failed to see blue flags being waved, which were signalling them to make way for the Mercedes driver, who was about to lap them.
This allowed Max Verstappen, who finished second, to close the gap to Hamilton significantly and ramp up the pressure.
The light panels were flashing with his race number on and Lewis was much, much faster
The 33-year-old defended well throughout the latter stages of the race but Whiting still felt the need to apologise to the Championship leader afterwards.
"I think Romain forgot the golden rule of blue flags and that's if, you are in a battle, you've got to forget about your own battle and move over," he said in a post-race briefing.
"I've drilled that into them many, many times and he completely forgot about it.
"The light panels were flashing with his race number on and Lewis was much, much faster.
"It was one of the worst cases of ignoring blue flags that I've seen for a long time."
Hamilton was heard panicking on the team radio when the two drivers failed to allow him past.
But after the race, the Mercedes star defended both Sirotkin and Grosjean.
"It definitely got a little bit interesting towards the end with some of the backmarkers as you already felt the draft from the cars when you were five or six seconds behind, the car would start to slide a little bit more," he said.
"And you can't really see the blue flags, they are very dark blue, and there are the smallest holes out there [in the fences] so you actually can't really see them until the light panels come on and even when they came on a lot of drivers weren't really responding.
"Max had an opportunity really. I had to go on a massive defence and even then I was still racing the backmarkers, they still weren't lifting off as I was alongside them.
"The hairs were standing up for a second, but then back to business."
Hamilton holds a 40-point lead over title rival Sebastian Vettel heading into the next Grand Prix, which will take place in Russia on September 30.