Hungarian GP stewards summon Nico Rosberg over yellow flag incident

A spin from Fernando Alonso at Turn 9 late in Q3 at the Hungaroring led to an immediate double-waved yellow situation, with the McLaren half on and half off the track.

First upon the scene and poised to significantly improve his Q3 laptime, Lewis Hamilton was forced to slow down substantially.

Further down the track, Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg was involved in the double-waved yellow situation for only a short period, before the green flags were waved as Alonso quickly rejoined.

The championship leader then set the fastest time in that sector, which allowed him to take pole position by 0.143 seconds from Hamilton.

The rules state under double-waved yellow situations a driver must "reduce...speed significantly, not overtake, and be prepared to change direction or stop".

Though it initially appeared stewards did not see any reason to investigate the incident, Rosberg was summoned to see them just over three hours after the end of the session.

He was called up for an "alleged breach of appendix H, article 2.4.5.1 b) of the FIA International Sporting Code, failure to show for yellow flags".

Rosberg was adamant he followed the rules.

"It's very clear. I knew what I had to do, I did what I had to do," he said.

"You have to significantly lift, and as result, slow down.

"I'm driving safely out there when there are double yellows as I'm expecting an issue in front.

"All I can say is I lost a fair amount of time. It's not really possible to measure it because it's a sequence of corners."

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff supported his driver.

"When he entered the yellow zone he lifted quite considerably and lost quite some time. You can see this on the data very clearly," said Wolff.

Team-mate Hamilton said the incident did raise a potential grey area.

"It needs to be clarified, for us drivers to understand the yellow flag situation because the way it is written is not potentially how it is interpreted, so more clarification would be good," said Hamilton.

"For me, no question I had to lift because Fernando was on the track, while for Nico, Fernando had cleared, but there were still flags, so it was just a different scenario.

"When it's a double yellow, there could be a car on track, a marshal on the track, you don't know what's around the corner, and you have to be prepared to stop.

"Nico only lost a tenth through the corner, so if that's what we're allowed to do in the future, even though you lift and approach the corner with due care, then we can approach it differently.

"But I'm not sure that's the safest approach.

"It needs to be really clear for us because it's not about our safety, it's about whether there is a car or a marshal on track."