Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso has slammed the stewards overseeing the European GP, suggesting the result of the race was "manipulated" when McLaren's Lewis Hamilton overtook the safety car early on in the race.
The safety car was deployed after Mark Webber's violent accident, and Hamilton overtook the silver Mercedes during that period. Though he eventually picked up a drive-through penalty, he went on to finish second, while Alonso, who had been running third when the safety car came out, dropped to eighth after queuing up behind it.
And speaking after the race, he suggested that he had been unfairly penalised for respecting the rules.
"It's a shame, not for us because this is racing, but for all the fans who came here to watch a manipulated race," he ranted at Spanish television immediately after the race.
"We were running well, in third after a good start. Then the safety car came out, which wasn't too good for us, but Hamilton overtook the safety car, something that I had never seen, overtaking the medical car with yellow flags. We were a metre off each other, and he finished second and I finished ninth."
He added: "This race was to finish second. Then with the safety car I would have finished where I finished in ninth, and Hamilton in eighth. But here, when you do the normal thing, which is respecting the rules, you finish ninth, and the one who doesn't respect them finishes second."
He suggested that the stewards had taken too long to issue Hamilton's punishment, allowing him to build up a gap to emerge from his drive through still in a strong position.
"It must have been very hard to know," Alonso shrugged, "They must have taken a lot of laps to see the replay of how he overtook the medical car. But that's how it is. Unfortunately everything goes against us and it seems they are allowing everything."
Ferrari themselves called the race a "scandal" after the incident in a statement released on their official website.
"A scandal, that's the opinion of so many fans and employees who are all in agreement: there is no other way to describe what happened during the European Grand Prix," the statement screamed.
"The way the race and the incidents during it were managed raise doubts that could see Formula 1 lose some credibility again, as it was seen around the world."
Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali, meanwhile, suggested that the safety car rules needed changing to guard against a similar incident in the future.
"Of course we are very angry because we didn't get the points that we should have got from this race – considering our performance," muttered Domenicali.
He added that: "On the sporting side, for me – I think we were on one side extremely unlucky. If you look, the only four cars that were on the main straight when the safety car was deployed were [Sebastian] Vettel, Hamilton, Fernando and Felipe.
"Sebastian was able to be in front of the safety car, Hamilton was basically not respecting the yellow light on the safety car, and then we had one complete lap with our two cars behind the safety car and, in the meantime, starting from Button onwards, all the others were coming in.
"The frustration is something related to the fact that I know that certain decisions, before they are taken, are right and not wrong. But when the situation is that if you take a decision and that decision, it has an affect on the end classification, but because of the delay it doesn't happen, this is something we need to consider."
He said that the team had already approached the FIA about their concerns.
"We have already taken up this matter with the FIA," Domenicali confirmed, "The result is closed and it is finished, for the future we have to make sure that the things we have been discussing will not happen again."
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