"This meant that, at the end of the day, it was going to be a judgment call. We made our views known to the race director and felt passionately at the time that Lewis had made a fair move. But the referee's decision is always final - and we are happy to follow that ruling.
"Was it a difficult decision to hear? Yes, because we had been fighting with so much conviction to overcome the grid penalty. But was it hard to accept the decision? Not at all, because we fully accept that, in this instance, the guys on the pitwall didn't have all the information available to the stewards working in the calm and quiet of the race control office.”
The team was unaware of its driver's 'error' until notification that Hamilton was under investigation appeared on the timing monitors, providing no chance to ask the Briton to allow Vettel back through and avoid the penalty.
“We weren't aware that the incident was questionable until a number of laps later," Whitmarsh confirmed, "At that point, we asked the
FIA for a clarification and were informed of [what happened] at turn seven. When the footage was replayed, it looked to us as if Lewis was comfortably past the other car before he straight-lined the chicane. We expressed our opinion to the FIA but, by that point, it was not possible to ask Lewis to drop back and relinquish the position.
"If somebody had told us about it at the time, we would have asked the race director if he wanted us to give the place back. In the cockpit, Lewis felt he was already ahead when he made the mistake and didn't feel it was an issue to raise with the team.”
