Montoya in the clear

McLaren boss Ron Dennis has exonerated Juan Pablo Montoya of any blame following his costly clash with backmarker Antonio Pizzonia which robbed him of second place in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps today.

Montoya was running a comfortable second behind team-mate Kimi Raikkonen with McLaren cruising towards their first one-two finish for five years when Pizzonia struck four laps from the end.

The Williams driver was on the faster dry tyres and attempted to pass Montoya, who was a whole lap ahead but running relatively slowly on wet weather tyres.

Pizzonia dived up the inside and made contact with the right rear tyre of Montoya’s McLaren, damaging both cars badly enough to force their immediate retirement.

Dennis was quick to back Montoya, who was involved in a similar incident with Tiago Monteiro in Turkey two races ago.

He said: “Juan Pablo came up behind him, Pizzonia moved and waved Juan Pablo past.

“So having seen that Pizzonia waved him past he overtook carefully, pulled in front and at the next corner Pizzonia just came straight into the back of him.

“From our perspective it’s an absolutely blameless situation for Juan Pablo. He was really the blameless victim of other people’s mistakes.

“We are doubly frustrated. We had a comfortable, well-judged, disciplined team-oriented race which should have been a comfortable one-two and it is bitterly disappointing when you do things well and something out of your control happens.

“Juan Pablo is as always very philosophical. He was just cruising so it’s massively frustrating.”

Dennis questioned Williams’ decision to bring Pizzonia into the pits so late in the race to change to dry tyres.

“I cannot see the logic why anyone would look to change, losing 25 seconds in the pits which would have been impossible to recuperate irrespective of the condition of the circuit,” he added. “So I think it was also not a great decision by Williams.”

Pizzonia blamed a misunderstanding for the accident, which has prompted McLaren to protest to race stewards.

He said: “I was on dry tyres and lapping quicker than him. He was quite slow maybe because his tyres were not good anymore or maybe he was just cruising to the end of the race.

“I thought he saw me and when he braked really early I thought he was trying to let me by. I put my car next to him but obviously he hadn’t seen me because he turned into his normal line and I couldn’t avoid the crash.

“I am sorry for him because I am not here to destroy anyone’s race. I destroyed my race too.”

There was more bad news for Williams when it emerged Nick Heidfeld has suffered a fresh injury blow.

Pizzonia was only in the car as a stand-in for Heidfeld, who was suffering from concussion following a testing crash.

But Williams tonight confirmed the German fell off his bike while riding near his Switzerland home, suffering a suspected cracked shoulder blade.