Lotus team principal Eric Boullier believes the race stewards were too harsh when they chose to penalise Romain Grosjean with a drive-through for what he described as a “brilliant move”.
The Frenchman came up behind Felipe Massa and eventually passed around the outside at turn four. However in doing so, he ran slightly wide and all four tyres crossed the white line.
The FIA justified their penalty in a statement, saying the “move would not otherwise have been possible,” had he remained within the boundaries.
Boullier however believes the drive-through was too harsh for what was ultimately avoidance driving as he would have hit the Ferrari of Massa had he not run wide.
“I feel this penalty was a little bit too much,” said Boullier. “He had nowhere to go, he was a little bit [over] just for a couple of centimetres and obviously it’s very harsh, when you get such a penalty, to recover when you’re fighting for the podium.
“The Ferrari is just next to him so he would have crashed. There is a clear rule, of course. Obviously it’s in our favour if there’s no penalty but I think the penalty itself is a bit harsh for that.”
He admits the incident was hard to judge, but says he’ll have a word with the stewards after.
“I have to pay tribute to them, to be honest, it’s difficult to draw the line, obviously,” he added.
“It’s a harsh penalty for what we could say a brilliant move. In other situations it could be a normal penalty and understandable. But I will have a word with them when I’ve cooled down a little.”
Massa meanwhile added his opinion and agreed with Boullier that Grosjean was hard done by.
