Michael Schumacher has kept hold of his first podium in over 2000 days, following a stewards’ inquiry in Valencia late on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Red Bull had pressed the case that the Mercedes driver should have his trophy stripped away, after Mark Webber spotted Schumacher deploying his ‘DRS’ overtaking system amid waving yellow flags.<\/p>\n
“For the same offense Vettel was penalised in Barcelona with a drive through penalty,” the team’s Dr Helmut Marko told Bild newspaper.<\/p>\n
Schumacher answered: “I assume that there will be no penalty.<\/p>\n
“It can be seen in the data that I slowed down for the yellow flags.”<\/p>\n
Webber hit back: “I’m sorry, but a rule is a rule.”<\/p>\n
The FIA stewards including former Sauber driver Mika Salo, however, ruled that Schumacher did indeed slow down for the yellow flags, despite his wing flap being open.<\/p>\n
“This incident differs substantially from that in round 5”, the stewards’ report added, referring to Vettel in Barcelona.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Williams’ Pastor Maldonado was handed a 20-second post-race time penalty for his late crash on Sunday with Lewis Hamilton.<\/p>\n
Maldonado had slammed an overly “aggressive” Hamilton, but former Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari pinned the blame on the Venezuelan.<\/p>\n
“He was entirely outside the limits of the track and, honestly, there was no room to overtake at that point,” the Spaniard told Mundo Deportivo newspaper.<\/p>\n
Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi will move five places down the grid at Silverstone next month for crashing into Felipe Massa on Sunday, while the stewards came down even harder on Jean-Eric Vergne.<\/p>\n
The Frenchman was seen to jink to the right before crashing with Heikki Kovalainen, and so a rare double-penalty was imposed.<\/p>\n
Not only will Vergne have to pay a EUR 25,000 fine, he faces a ten-position grid penalty for Silverstone after stewards took a dim view of the “serious nature of the incident”.<\/p>\n
Asked about Toro Rosso’s struggles since dumping both of its established drivers at the end of last year, Alguersuari said only: “Thankfully it’s not my problem.”<\/p>\n
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