Hamilton laments safety car error
Lewis Hamilton was left ruing the moment he overtook the safety car in the GP2 feature race at Imola, which caused him to be disqualified from the race
Hamilton ran second to eventual race winner Gianmaria Bruni in the early stages, but was penalised for a jump start. When he came in to complete his drive-through penalty, the safety car was deployed after Lucas di Grassi's sizeable shunt.
When Hamilton returned to the track he was behind the Campos cars of Adrian Valles and Felix Porteiro, who had been delayed at the start, these were waved by the safety car, and Hamilton followed.
"After the drive through, I thought I was in last place. So I just passed the safety car and tried to get round to the back of the pack so that I could make my mandatory stop."
However, as the chasing pack had also pitted, Hamilton was indeed the leader, and the offence was punished with disqualification.
"It's very unfortunate," he added. "I know we had the pace. I made a bloody good start, it was just that I rolled a little bit when we formed up the grid. I was stopped when the race started."
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