Championship leader Lewis Hamilton has shrugged off criticism from Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso that he had been let off without any real punishment after he overtook the safety car at the European Grand Prix at the weekend.
Hamilton passed the early safety car, which was deployed to deal with Mark Webber's high-speed flip, and received a drive-through penalty for his crimes.
But the time taken to issue the penalty allowed him to emerge from his drive-through in a competitive position, while Alonso and others who remained behind the safety car dropped down the field.
Hamilton, though, insists that he was fairly punished for his mistake, and suggested that he didn't understand Alonso's complaints.
"Yeah," Hamilton was quoted as saying by the Press Association on Tuesday, "I even saw him overtaken by a Sauber [Kamui Kobayashi] on the big screen. It's very unlike him to be overtaken by a Sauber so he must have been completely in another world. But I don't understand why I affected his race so much.
"Everyone has a right to their opinion, and he must be disappointed with his own result, but I didn't do anything to him."
Ferrari seem to be alone in their efforts to see Hamilton penalised further, and Hamilton took the time to defend the stewards and their performances this season.
"The FIA are doing an incredible job because they are allowing us to race this year," he smiled.
According to a report from Autosport, the delay in issuing the penalty was simply down to the time taken for the stewards to access timing data, video footage of the pass and transponder details in order to clarify that Hamilton had indeed passed the safety car before crossing the line.
Meanwhile, the decision to hold the Ferrari pair behind the safety car for an extra period of time was merely down to the FIA looking to protect the on-track medical car, which was rushing to the scene of Webber's accident.
Webber was unhurt in the crash, which happened after he clipped the rear of Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus.
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