Dennis feels black flag was harsh on Montoya

Ron Dennis hit out at Juan Pablo Montoya’s exclusion from the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, but laid blame for the problem squarely at his driver’s feet.

Montoya was shown the black flag after jumping a red light on the exit of the pit lane, denying the Colombian second place from a race eventually won by team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

Dennis revealed Montoya only found himself in that position because of an error by the team, which saw the Colombian complete an extra lap behind the safety car.

If Montoya had pitted he would have had a clear run out of the pits – instead he was faced with a red light to allow the pack past, a signal he ignored.

Dennis claimed a black flag was an excessive punishment for Montoya’s crime, but admitted two errors in the space of a minute caused the problem.

He said: “I think there are two separate mistakes, one which was the responsibility of his engineers and the other was his responsibility. They are separate stand-alone and cannot be looked at together.

“The black flag exclusion is unappealable and it can only make the situation worse if you ignore it.

“If you have a situation that the stewards are bringing a subjective opinion then subjectivity needs to be fair. I am not criticising anybody.

“I just can’t see that the crime fitted the punishment, I really didn’t.”

Dennis revealed he held frantic discussions with race director Charlie Whiting to find a way to keep Montoya in the race.

The McLaren boss suggested alternative punishments but Whiting left the matter in the hands of stewards, who considered such a breach of safety regulations to be worthy of exclusion.

Dennis said: “We have said we made a mistake. We asked Charlie ‘can we go to the back of the grid or can we take a drive through’. We were told it was in the hands of the stewards.

“Anything other than following his instruction would have been another breach.”

Dennis admitted Montoya’s penalty spoiled an otherwise good day for McLaren, who saw Raikkonen cut the gap to world championship leader Fernando Alonso with victory.

“It certainly balances it off,” he added. “They are equal and opposite.

“The frustration and the emotion in the team is that we made a mistake. The team feels understandably uncomfortable with that because we don’t like making mistakes but we take them on the chin.

“We win and lose as a team. Our approach is to be honest about our mistakes and that is what we are doing.”