Gutierrez unhappy with stewarding inconsistency after penalty

Esteban Gutierrez is unhappy at "not consistent" stewarding after he received a "very harsh" grid penalty after final practice for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Pascal Wehrlein had to take to the grass to avoid Gutierrez at the top of Radillon, with the Haas travelling slowly on the racing line on an out lap. Gutierrez was given a five-place grid penalty and three penalty points for the incident, but was not the only driver investigated following the session.

Kevin Magnussen was called to the stewards for blocking Sebastian Vettel at Blanchimont - with the four-time world champion swearing over team radio after the incident - but the stewards decided to take no further action.

Asked if he felt his penalty was harsh, Gutierrez replied: "Very harsh, especially considering that Magnussen didn’t get anything. Very harsh.

"Honestly it’s up to them to decide the judgement but at least be consistent and today they were not consistent. I respect them a lot, I came there with the right approach, I explained my situation and I have explained that to you but the final decision was… Yeah… It’s just an unfair situation to see that somebody who had a similar situation got no penalty and I got a five-place grid penalty.

"It’s a painful miscommunication mistake, definitely. It was not intentional of course, it was practice and it was a risky situation, in that corner it’s probably important. I think we can move on, this will not affect anything, my approach for the race. I think we are going to have a fun race tomorrow.”

Elaborating on the incident, Gutierrez says he had not been made aware Wehrlein was coming up behind him.

“It was a miscommunication error. Basically I didn’t get the message from my engineer that he was coming and then by the time he came from the back he came very quickly. I left some space to the right for the same reason, but then when he comes very quickly I cannot make an aggressive move because if I make the move to the wrong direction, it can be even worse.

"I saw that he tried to go to the left and then he changed to the right so it’s the kind of situation where it’s better to stay kind of straight because otherwise it can be very dangerous."

Wehrlein himself said the incident could have a resulted in a big accident.

“It was really close," Wehrlein said. "For me it was a shocking moment of course. You are coming out of Eau Rouge, you can’t see anything and he was on a slow lap, I was on a fast lap, so the speed difference was more than 100kph. The problem is when you’re coming out of Eau Rouge and all of a sudden there is someone in front of you and driving very slowly, then it’s a big surprise for you.

"The even bigger surprise was that he was on the racing line. I thought he would stay on the right so I moved to the left but then he changed direction again and to avoid a big crash I went on the grass and I was lucky that nothing happened. I could have lost the car on the grass easily, I could have crashed into him, but in the end it was an unlucky situation. That’s it.”

With Wehrlein saying Gutierrez apologised, Haas team principal Guenther Steiner defended the driver's role in the incident.

"A little bit unhappy about the Esteban situation," Steiner said. "It is a penalty which I think is a little bit unjust and little bit harsh in my opinion. We did wrong but it wasn’t him to be honest. Our engineer got a little bit distracted and didn’t see Wehrlein.

"It was wrong, I am not trying to make good but 5 positions… come on, sometimes you need to be a bit consistent with these things and I think it is a very inconsistent decision.

"We did wrong, we apologised and I think they took it. The good thing is nothing happened, he was 100kmh faster than you but we know that, we are conscious. We are not disputing the fact, we are disputing the penalty."