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Rosberg penalty branded 'complete nonsense'

ByAutoSport

Published 02/10/2016 at 13:30 GMT

Toto Wolff has described the 10-second penalty Nico Rosberg was given for colliding with Formula 1 rival Kimi Raikkonen in the Malaysian Grand Prix as "complete nonsense".

Eurosport

Image credit: Eurosport

Rosberg banged wheels with Raikkonen at Turn 2 as he forced his way through into third place at Sepang.
The stewards investigated the collision and blamed Rosberg, but the time penalty did not change the final result because the German built a big enough advantage in the closing stages of the race.
Wolff said: "The penalty is just complete nonsense.
"It's not what I want to focus on because we have let Lewis down and that should be something that we are beating up ourselves [for] and not moan about an unfair penalty that didn't make any difference because Nico was still third.
"But over a couple of months ago we decided altogether that we wanted to allow the racing between all the cars and if it wasn't 100 percent clear that someone was at fault then we would let them race against each other ... and then this.
"I don't know, it is for others to comment and not my main priority after that race."
Rosberg admitted it was an aggressive move and though he didn't expect to get a penalty, he accepts it.
"I went for it and we touched and that's it," said Rosberg.
"It was an aggressive move and they judged it to be a bit too aggressive.
"I didn't think I was going to get a penalty at the time but...."
He added: "I accept it, I'm fortunate that it didn't cost me anything in the race.
"I had to give it everything at the end to make sure we had a 10 second gap but at the same time we had to look after the engine.
"Because of Lewis problem we were hesitant to run it all out until the end."
Raikkonen admitted he was surprised by Rosberg's move.
"I could not expect he was going to try something as he had a funny line into Turn 1 so I was turning in then suddenly I saw in the mirrors, I had to turn right or we both would have ended up there," said Raikkonen.
"I got some damage. That didn't help and he got penalised from it but it didn't really change the end result and we kept trying but we couldn't do better than that."
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