 Montoya Unhappy with New Penalty System Thursday March 28th, 2002 Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya blasted the introduction of penalties for racing incidents from this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix onwards at a press conference at Interlagos on Thursday. Williams driver Montoya controversially clashed with Ferrari rival Michael Schumacher at the last race, in Malaysia, and the FIA introduced the ruling in a world council meeting the following week. Drivers will now be penalised 10 grid positions for the following race if they are deemed to have driven irresponsibly, and Montoya fells this punishment is too harsh. "I think there are going to be a lot of problems with the ten places on the grid for the next race and everything because there are always points of view," he said. "I could have got penalised for this race as well and that is just absolutely stupid." Montoya is concerned that it will be difficult for the FIA to make a decision between when a crash is deemed a racing incident and when it is fit for punishment. The confident Colombian touched wheels with Schumacher at last year's Brazilian Grand Prix as he passed the German, and he has argued that there was little difference between that incident and the crash in Malaysia, where the front right wheel of Montoya's car took off Schumacher's front wing. "We touched but I don't see it as an accident," he said of the Malaysian collision. "An accident happens when two cars crash and they end up in the barriers. "They (stewards) could have said exactly the same thing when I passed Michael here and we touched. It was exactly the same thing a year ago here. The difference was that we were side-by-side (here) and in Malaysia I was ahead of him. If we had been side-by-side then we would have just touched and kept going." The new ruling has been met with dissatisfaction as drivers voice their concerns over the FIA's policing on controversial matters, and there have been calls for the introduction of permanent stewards to improve consistency in decisions.
Published at 19:44:54 GMT
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