Lewis Hamilton labels Sochi qualifying reprimand 'ridiculous'

The world champion was summoned to see the officials as he had rejoined incorrectly after going wide over the run-off area at Turn 2 early in Q1.

As he was previously reprimanded for reversing in the Bahrain GP pitlane during qualifying, Hamilton can only afford one more such ruling before receiving a 10-place grid penalty.

"I'm aware there's going to be at least one 10-place penalty in the future because I've got one more reprimand to go," he said.

"The last one was bloody ridiculous.

"It's quite funny. When I was karting, there was one steward, he was just there to make everyone's weekend a bad weekend.

"I'm starting to have reminiscent experiences of recent... families would turn up, spend so much money to be there on a weekend.

"There was this one guy, a complete arsehole. I heard he is still there. He was just there to ruin people's weekends.

"I started to see signs of him!"

When asked which reprimand he was referring to, he said he "can't remember what the last one was".

On being made aware of it, he said: "Both of them!"

Hamilton avoided the collisions at the start to run fifth and once he made it into second, he began cutting the gap to Rosberg.

The world champion got it down to 7.7s before he had to back off when the team informed him of a water pressure problem.

"There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I could win it," he said.

"I had the pace but then I problem with the engine again, so I had to back off.

"I wasn't at full throttle down the straights, so just trying to look after it.

"It's not that it hurts, it's not that at all. I don't sit here happy because nothing has gone particularly well.

"I fought hard through that race and got myself back up there.

"Ultimately, I wasn't able to race for the win, which I believe I had a chance to do. That's the only thing in my mind."