Lotus's Mike Gascoyne has blamed Mark Webber for his spectacular coming together with Heikki Kovalainen in Valencia at the weekend.
Technical boss defends Kovalainen in wake of spectacular crash
Lotus's chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne has blamed Mark Webber for his spectacular coming together with Heikki Kovalainen in Sunday's European Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver walked away unscathed from the collision, which resulted in his car becoming airborne at 190mph and backflipping before landing and smashing into a tyre wall.
Although Webber did not explicitly blame Kovalainen for the shunt, which came after he had fallen behind the backmarker following both a poor start and an early pit stop, he did say the Finn's early braking took him by surprise.
And despite the pair racing for position, Webber also claimed that Kovalainen should have let him through.
However, Gascoyne has been quick to jump to the defence of his driver, saying that he had no option other than to brake where he did because of the Lotus T127's inferior grip.
"Obviously neither driver wanted it to happen, but from our point of view Heikki was driving in a straight line, defending his position and then someone hits him from behind," he said.
"So where the mistake lies is fairly clear from our point of view. I'm sure Mark will have a different one."
Gascoyne explained: "Mark's charged up behind Heikki, he's got the quicker car and Heikki has to brake where he brakes because of the grip he has.
"At the end of the day it's up to the guy overtaking to do so safely, and he didn't.
"If you hit someone from behind it's not the fault of the guy in front.
"Heikki braked where he was supposed to brake and someone hit him, so that's our point of view."
Under pressure
Webber also had a high-profile collision with team-mate Sebastian Vettel in Turkey four weeks ago, something that was not lost on Gascoyne.
He pointedly added: "Mark's now had two accidents in three races and it's never been his fault."
Gascoyne said he was able to put his point of view across in the knowledge that neither Webber nor Kovalainen had been hurt in the incident.
"That is the most important thing," said Gascoyne.
"He was under pressure because he was having a bad race, but he wouldn't have wanted that.
"We didn't want it either because we are trying to race our own race, and it's one of those things. It's motor racing. It happens."
