Formula One news

Qualifying incident 'unacceptable' - Dennis

McLaren team boss Ron Dennis says his team's strategy of treating both drivers equally will not change despite the fact it has led to controversy several times this season, most recently at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

"What happened on Saturday was really unacceptable," Dennis told ITV of the Hungarian qualifying incident. "We have very, very strong commitment to parity and it was one of those times when as hard as you try, and we do, there was a deviation from our plans and that put the team in an extremely difficult position which has cost us all our constructors' championship points in the event our appeal doesn't follow through."

"That matter will be discussed on Monday," he added. "I don't think either driver was blameless in this situation and we could have been a bit more aggressive in handling the situation but that's not really my style. The truth is we're under phenomenal pressure in the last three minutes of qualifying and we time these things to very small margins and you only have to see that Fernando crossed the line with two seconds to go to get his final flying lap in which shows it wasn't a contrived approach, but pushing our system to the limits and sometimes you go over the limits."

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