Formula One news
Whitmarsh feels sorry for Raikkonen
09 June 2008McLaren CEO Martin Whitmarsh was disappointed with Hamilton's mistake in the pitlane and felt sorry for Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen who's race ended due to the Briton's mistake. Hamilton received a 10-place grid penalty for the French Grand Prix.
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"Clearly, with the overwhelming majority of the cars pitting at the same time, the pitlane was unusually congested," Whitmarsh looked back at the incident. "As a result, Lewis not only had to monitor the two cars ahead of him but also keep an eye on the red lights at the pit exit. We all saw what happened next - and that's racing. You have to feel sorry for Kimi and Ferrari, who were the innocent victims on this occasion.
When asked if the team will consider protesting Lewis's penalty he answered: "Absolutely not. We regard the stewards' decision as hard but fair. Hard in the sense that it clearly makes Lewis's task more difficult in Magny-Cours, but fair on the grounds that we have no argument with their contention that he did cause an avoidable accident. Sometimes severe consequences can be the results of split-second misjudgments. And, in this instance, we'll take the loss of a likely win and the 10-place grid penalty squarely on the chin.
"We're going into France with a 10-place penalty for Lewis so that will clearly affect our approach. Without giving too much away, I suspect he'll run a little bit longer in the first stint than would otherwise have been the case. We haven't modelled it yet, but intuitively that's what we'll probably do."
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