Heikki Kovalainen has not been blamed for the shunt involving Mark Webber at the European Grand Prix last weekend, with Webber himself refusing to point blame at the Finnish Lotus driver, and his team defending him as well.
Webber launched over the back of Kovalainen early on in the race, somersaulting over the top of the Lotus in a spectacular crash that the Australian was lucky to walk away from.
But Kovalainen himself said that he thought Webber had just been "surprised" by his early braking for the corner.
"I'm fine and I'm very happy that Mark is fine as well," Kovalainen said to the BBC after the race, "It shouldn't have happened, but it did.
"I think Mark was surprised how early I had to brake for that corner. He was behind me, I was defending because I was racing him and I always want to defend, but then I think he was not sure which way to go and at that moment I hit the brakes and he had no chance to react. I think that's what happened."
Webber himself refused to blame Kovalainen for the shunt, saying that the crash had really been a racing incident between the two of them.
"Well, it always takes two to tango, doesn't it? There's two of us in this incident," Webber shrugged, "I've driven slow cars - I've been at the back - and obviously when someone comes up with those kind of closing distances to be down the inside, bouncing off the limiter and carrying on like it is going to...
"I mean how long is that [staying ahead] going to last for? It's going to last another 15 seconds so is it worth it?"
He explained that: "I was looking for the best tow to get the job done and pass him and he was playing quite hard as well down the inside, blocking all of a sudden very aggressively.
"In the end the thing that surprised me was how early he braked, that's the thing which caught me out. It didn't matter where I was or how close to the tow, I still had everything under control."
The Lotus technical director Mike Gascoyne also defended Kovalainen, saying that Webber made a mistake in gauging the distance between the cars.
"Heikki was right to defend because it was for position," he ranted to Autosport, "I don't care who you are. End of story. All this A-team, B-team stuff, forget it.
"If it is for position, and around here you can defend – and if we had kept him behind us for 40 laps then great. If we had ruined his race, then absolutely great!
"Are we saying [Gilles] Villeneuve at Jarama [in 1981] should have let the four cars past him? Or was it one of the greatest grands prix of all time? Should a Force India be letting a McLaren past simple because its faster? Where do you draw the line? It is a motor race, isn't it?"
He added that: "Heikki was going to have a great race, he was driving away from the new teams and with the incidents we could have picked something up – but unfortunately we were the incident.
"At the end of the day Mark has rushed up, it is the first corner he's got him and he has smacked into the back of him. The guy was driving in a straight line and braking – sorry. Do you have to ask the question about who was at fault?"
Despite Gascoyne's defence, footage from the crash suggested that Kovalainen braked up to 80m earlier on the lap the crash occurred, compared to Webber's braking point for the same corner on the previous lap.
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