Formula One news

Stewards weren't convinced by Hamilton - Ferrari boss

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali was cautious in his appraisal of the stewards' decision following Lewis Hamilton's 25s penalty after the Belgian Grand Prix. 

The McLaren-Mercedes driver overtook Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen at the final chicane by short-cutting it, and although he eased up to let Raikkonen past again, he was found to be in breach of the sporting regulations and given a 25s penalty, added to his race time which dropped him from winner to third place, handing victory to Ferrari's Felipe Massa. McLaren later gave notice of appeal against the stewards' decision.

"We are not used to commenting on decisions," said Domenicali. "The only thing I would say is that as soon as we had been summoned by the stewards, we gave our position to the stewards and that was it. Then for sure the stewards listened to the Hamilton argument, and that was the decision. We don't want to make any further comment."

Domenicali pointed out that Ferrari had nothing to do with the lodging of the protest. "We were simply summoned by the stewards at the end of the race," he said, before adding that it was only about the manoeuvre at the last chicane."

However, Domenicali did say that privately he thought, "It was a little bit extreme. It's normal that when you attack you are racing but the problem is the advantage that may be taken by doing a manoeuvre like this and this is the key point of it. I think that that's the focus that has to be considered."

Domenicali was also quick to praise Raikkonen who had been so quick before the rain at the end of the race. "It was really a shame that he was not able to finish because he drove a fantastic race. He was pushing hard as you can see from his lap times, and then he found it a little bit more difficult on the last set of hard tyres on which he was not able to push as hard as he wanted, and of course at the end, it was really difficult because he went off. But it was good to see that he is very motivated and he's pushing as hard as he can." 

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