Grosjean: Hamilton spared for title fight

Editor

Romain Grosjean believes Lewis Hamilton avoided a grid penalty in Britain only because of his position in the title fight.

Hamilton, who lies 20 points behind Sebastian Vettel in the race for this year’s World title, faced a stewards’ investigation for blocking Grosjean in qualifying.

But while the stewards stated that “Grosjean may potentially have been affected by the presence of Hamilton”, they ruled that he was “not impeded.”

The Haas driver isn’t impressed.

“Surprised by the wording,” he told Crash.net. “‘Driver behind has not been impeded’. If losing 0.3 to 0.4s in one corner is not being impeded I’m very surprised.

“I think it opens room for mess in qualifying and the rules is pretty clear. I know that there is a world title going on at the front but we are in a position where we actually fight as hard as the boys at the front and I was impeded today.

“Maybe if it was another driver the sanction would have been something and it does feel sometimes like there are two types of decisions.”

He added: “I think the title race is an important one but again we are fighting as hard as those boys.

“We’ve put a lot of work in and yes I lost 0.35s in two corners. If next time I have to get my front wing in his rear diffuser to show that I have been impeded…

“We’ve got very clear rules in qualifying and with ten cars in track in Q3 we should not have those problems.”