Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton has picked up four penalties across his last three grands prix, prompting questions about whether the seven-time world champion is suddenly making uncharacteristic errors. BBC Sport's F1 correspondent Andrew Benson argues there is no real pattern behind the cluster, as each incident stemmed from a different and largely unrelated cause rather than a recurring flaw in Hamilton's driving.

At Silverstone he was penalised for jumping the start, at Spa for a first-lap collision with George Russell, and in Hungary he received a three-place grid drop for impeding Oscar Piastri in qualifying plus a five-second race penalty for marginally exceeding the pit-lane speed limit while racing Kimi Antonelli. Hamilton, who finished fifth in Hungary behind team-mate Charles Leclerc as Lando Norris won for McLaren, said the run of incidents had been "pretty bad" but largely down to inconsistent stewarding and unfortunate circumstances rather than a deeper issue, and vowed to give officials no further reason to penalise him before F1 resumes at the Dutch Grand Prix on 21-23 August.