Before losing the 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix to a pit lane mistake, Lewis Hamilton made his second Formula One mistake of the month earlier when he posted on-board video footage of his pole position lap at the Chinese Grand Prix on his Instagram account.
But Formula One is notoriously strict about their videos and F1’s new overlords – Liberty Media – are apparently no different than the former crusty barnacle regime of Bernie Ecclestone in this regard as they asked Hamilton to remove the video from his account.
Hamilton claimed he did not realize he was in infringement of the rules and dutifully removed the post when asked to do so.
“This season, Formula One has issued a new set of social media guidelines allowing teams and drivers to film and record their activities so as to bring the sport closer to the fans,” a spokesperson for Liberty Media said. “However, F1 does not want drivers posting international feed footage as this has been licensed to broadcasters’ partners, in many cases exclusively.All teams and drivers have a clear understating of this and whenever a mistake is made, teams and drivers are asked to take down any relevant footage.”
Hamilton currently resides in second place behind Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, trailing Vettel by seven points [68-61] after the first three races of the season, with the Russian Grand Prix coming up on Sunday.