Williams driver Pastor Maldonado believes that his penalties for ignoring blue flags at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix were "completely wrong", saying that when in a battle on track it was hard for a slow car to allow frontrunners past.
Maldonado was part of a number of drivers penalised for ignoring blue flags during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where stewards appeared to be more draconian on the issue than usual.Maldonado received two penalties, a drive-through during the race and a post-race time penalty, for apparently holding up faster cars despite being shown blue flags.
Meanwhile, Renault's Bruno Senna also picked up a drive-through, and Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari received a post-race penalty for the same crime.
Under F1 rules, drivers about to be lapped must cede track position to faster cars before they pass three successive waved blue flags.
But Maldonado, who was fighting with other cars for position when he incurred the penalties, said that the punishments were "completely wrong".
"I saw the [faster] guys for sure, but I cannot lose four seconds every time," the Venezuelan whined in the Williams team's post-race podcast.
He added: "I think in the past it's always been the same for everybody, even when I get the Virgin cars or the Hispania cars, I'm always losing time. This is part of the job, especially when you're fighting for the points. In that moment, I was fighting with Alguersuari, so it was a difficult decision.
"I'm really disappointed because it's the first time this year that they've done that. For me, it's completely wrong."
His views were backed up by Senna, who suggested that he would make a point of bringing the issue up with FIA race director Charlie Whiting over what he saw as an 'inconsistent' use of the penalty rule.
"I think it was a lack of consistency, because we see people doing much, much worse," the Brazilian told the Autosport website on Monday.
"If you think about it, I probably held Jenson [Button] for one corner, which was Turn 7, and people held other guys up for a whole sector and didn't get a blue flag."
He added: "The fact is, we get the blue flags at the same time as the slower cars, but if we decide to slow down to let the other guys past, we can lose five seconds and this is absolutely not fair."
Senna eventually finished 16th following his penalty, while Maldonado ended the race 14th despite his post-race time addition.
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