F1 News: Damage to Sergio Perez's Car Revealed After Lewis Hamilton Shunt

The hole looks quite big! Some damage is also seen toward the floor of the RB19.

The Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Race squashed the excitement of many fans. However, it also became the reason for a controversy that just got out of the oven. Lewis Hamilton, who is in the middle of this controversy happened to nudge Sergio Perez's Red Bull RB19 through turns 14 and 15 of the Spa-Francorchamps during the sprint race. 

The Mercedes' front wheel punched a hole through the RB19's sidepod, exposing the car's internals and compromising the aero. Eventually, Perez was forced to retire while Hamilton secured P4. 

The FIA stewards punished Hamilton with a five-second penalty, bringing his position down to 7. Two points were also added to his racing license. Several fans called the penalty a harsh one while many compared it with a similar incident from Baku when George Russell went hard on the inside of Max Verstappen in turn 1 and made a hole on the sidepod of his F1 car. 

However, the damage was not significant enough to end the race for Verstappen but the struggle did see him finish third. In this case, there was no official intervention from the FIA and no penalties were levied on any of the drivers.

The following Twitter post shows in detail the extent of damage done to the Red Bulls.

Today was not the first collision between a RB sidepod and a Mercedes car during a Sprint race!💥

It already happened in Baku between Verstappen and Russell.

In that instance, VER still finished 3rd🥉
PER's damage was much more severe, though!😳#F1 #BelgianGP #Perez #Hamilton pic.twitter.com/3RAQxBS9HG

— Formula Data Analysis (@FDataAnalysis) July 29, 2023

Crunch! This is the damage to the car of ⁦@SChecoPerez⁩ after contact with HAM during #F1Sprint today - full analysis here: https://t.co/2afmghoD2T #F1 #BelgianGP #Spa @F1 pic.twitter.com/uFQmPSuaRC

— Cllr Sam S Collins (@NorthHertsSam) July 29, 2023

A fan gives more insight into the damage.

If you've seen the F1 analysis by Sam Collins then you could also see that he has floor damage as well as tyre damage within the sidepod on some metallic part in the cooling assembly.

— Anchit Jaiswal (@Sep_ajax) July 29, 2023

Fans point out the inconsistency in results:

No penalty in Baku though. The inconsistency is unreal

— pascal (@pxscaal21) July 29, 2023

Baku, April 2023: Contact between Russell and Verstappen causes damage to the Red Bull side pod. NO FURTHER ACTION.

Spa, July 2023: Contact between Hamilton and Perez causes damage to the Red Bull side pod. 5 SECOND PENALTY FOR HAMILTON.

Both were racing incidents!

— BAiNZY (@BAiNZY3) July 29, 2023