Jun.8 (GMM) McLaren team members on Sunday afternoon officially accepted Lewis Hamilton's penalty for crashing into the stationary Kimi Raikkonen in the pitlane at Montreal.
Stewards ruled that the 23-year-old pole sitter and former championship leader caused an avoidable crash and, along with Nico Rosberg, will demote him ten places down the Magny Cours grid in two weeks."It was a serious mistake from Hamilton and I think the penalty imposed by the FIA is in line with it, even if it does not restore what was a lost opportunity for us," Ferrari chief Stefano Domenicali said.But despite some media reports quoting chief executive Martin Whitmarsh as declaring the punishment "severe", team members had more conciliatory tones in the post-race media document."It's just unfortunate when stuff like this happens, but I have no argument with the stewards," Hamilton said.Team boss Ron Dennis, however, came closer to disagreeing with the penalty, playing down the incident as "just one of those things"."The plain fact is that Lewis didn't realise that the cars in front of him were coming to a halt until too late," he said."It's difficult for a driver to decide whether to focus on the lights or on the cars ahead in situations like that. Having said that, we accept the stewards' decision," Dennis added.World champion Raikkonen, however, dismissed comparisons of the incident with his shunt into Adrian Sutil at Monaco two weeks ago."It's one thing to make a mistake at 200kph but another to hit a car stopped at a red light," the Finn insisted.
