JUNE 16, 2010

Force India critical of Canadian driving standards

Force India's Andy Stevenson has lambasted the conduct of drivers in the Canadian Grand Prix after separate incidents spoiled the races of Tonio Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil.

Force India's Andy Stevenson has lambasted the conduct of drivers in the Canadian Grand Prix after separate incidents spoiled the races of Tonio Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil.

Liuzzi, who has had a tough season to date, spent a lot of time at the Silverstone factory between Turkey and Canada, and after a number of issues at recent races, was back in chassis No1, the car he tested pre-season and drove in the early races. It netted him his best qualifying performance of the season, sixth, but he dropped down the field after first lap contact with Felipe Massa before driving a storming race back to ninth.

"Tonio was making ground on Jenson Button at the start but then Massa left him no room and pushed him onto the grass," Stevenson explained. "Then it looks as if Massa had another couple of bites at him. The car looks like a shark's attacked it - ridiculous..."

Liuzzi's team mate, Adrian Sutil, then saw Robert Kubica shoot across his bows as the Renault entered the pitlane.

"Adrian was having a great battle with Kubica who, for some unknown reason wanted to fight with him even though we could see his guys out in the pitlane and knew he was going to stop," Stevenson goes on. "It was one of the most ridiculous moves I've ever seen. If it wasn't for Adrian's sharpness that would have been a huge accident going into the last corner. It was crazy. It ruined Adrian's race and caused a puncture to the right rear."

The driver lending his expertise to the stewards in Canada was none other than 1972/'74 world champion Emerson Fittipaldi. While this year has been refreshing in the lack of a spate of driver penalties which can undermine a driver's confidence in actually racing, many felt that Kubica was fortunate to escape with just a reprimand in Montreal...