Lewis and Max were effusive in their reciprocal praise for good, clean racing in the events leading up to this. I genuinely see the incident as a desperate, frustrated Hamilton resorting to shitty racecraft. He had a preview of the back of Max's car during the sprint and wanted to avoid the main event.
I rarely find myself agreeing with Horner, but I'm fully on board with his statements. Hamilton's move was amateurish, attempting to win the race on the first lap. He never had a shot in hell of making that corner cleanly. He clearly did not have the position, given the right rear/left front contact. He was understeering like mad because he was carrying too much speed. It was stupid, it was reckless, and it was avoidable. It also could have ended Lewis's race, as reports came out after that the repairs completed during the red flag allowed him to continue. If that had been the outcome, it would have been frustrating but something that everybody could live with. However, he could carry on, so...
The penalty... I don't know what you do here. The stewards put him at fault, gave him points on his license, and had to do something from a time standpoint. Can the stewards look at the result of the infraction and judge more harshly? They seem to avoid that when possible. Is the fact that the Mercedes had a clear path to victory by knocking out its rival something you can legislate out somehow? Clearly, the answer is no. You can't give a different penalty to a Mercedes and an Aston Martin for the same type of incident, though the resulting time loss could hurt one far worse than the other.
Lewis has benefitted from some unfortunate shit this year. I don't think he's at all earned his points. His celebrations, while at his home track, were over the top for somebody that did not in any way cleanly win. I'm hoping that Max gets back on track and can build another Lewis horseshoe lead.