Lewis Hamilton's debacle continues after the Dutch Grand Prix, which could have not finished worse for Ferrari: both drivers, including Charles Leclerc, crashed and did not finish, and Hamilton was given a five-place grid penalty for the next Grand Prix. Which, to add insult to injury, is the home Grand Prix for Ferrari, the Italian GP at Monza.
Hamilton crashed during lap 23/72 in Sunday's race, at Turn 3 in Zandvoort, when he lost control of the car on the slippery white line due to rain. "It's not a normal sort of thing for me to have, [to] crash out of a race. I can't really say too much more about it", the seven-time world champion said after the race, surely biting his tongue one month after saying he was "completely useless" and that Ferrari would need to find a replacement. Leclerc later crashed too in a collision with Kimi Antonelli.
However, Hamilton's penalty had nothing to do with it. It happened even before the race, during the pre-race reconnaissance laps. Hamilton violated the rules about yellow flags, which require drivers to reduce speed significantly when double yellow flags waved, which ware raised "due to the nature of the track".
However, Hamilton did not lower his speed in a way thar the stewards consider 'significantly' nor 'greatly reduced': approximately 20kph less than his speed at the same point in practice sessions. The stewards reduced his ban in half, which would have normally been for 5 grid positions, because "the driver had made an attempt to reduce his speed and to brake earlier" (via Formula1.com).