25/07/2016
NEWS STORY
Haas driver Esteban Gutierrez has called Lewis Hamilton "disrespectful" following an incident during yesterday's Hungarian Grand Prix.
With teammate Nico Rosberg in hot pursuit, Hamilton, who had previously eased off appearing to force the German into the clutches of Daniel Ricciardo, was now on a charge again.
Losing time as he passed the backmarkers, the Briton was clearly frustrated after a brief period behind Gutierrez' Haas.
As he finally passed the Mexican, coming on to the main straight, the Briton made a classic American gesture.
Gutierrez was not impressed.
"Not a very respectful move from him I have to say," the Mexican told reporters. "I have spoken to him in the past. I think he is respectful, he is the world champion, but he shouldn't do these kinds of things.
"He should respect all of the competitors," he continued. "You never know, maybe in the future I will be fighting for a championship with him, so he has to respect that."
Indeed, so incensed was the youngster, he subsequently took to Twitter.
"Being a world champion doesn't give you the right to be disrespectful to your competitors, my friend," he tweeted.
To add to his frustration, Gutierrez was handed a 5s time penalty for ignoring the blue flags, which subsequently demoted him to 13th.
"I didn't ignore them," he insisted. "I simply had two airplanes coming from behind, coming very quickly. So, of course, I was focused on my race and they came very quickly, and I was trying to find the safest place to let him by."
The youngster at least has the support of his team boss, Guenther Steiner, who believes it was Hamilton's gesture that stirred the stewards in to action.
"I don't know what he was annoyed about because he (Gutierrez) didn't keep him back this long," said the Italian. "It's one thing Esteban got penalised with five seconds, and we still need to check the data and the timing, but I think the five seconds were taken because the gesture was done, not because he was holding him up.
"Every racing driver is the same, they want to go and Esteban cannot go up in fresh air, he cannot jump," he continued. "It's a little bit give and take.
"I think Lewis didn't change his result in the hold-up. Was it needed? Maybe not. But it happened. For me, the five seconds were given because of the gesture."
Check out our Sunday gallery, here.