Zoom A penalty for locking up and pushing Raikkonen wide

Lewis Hamilton finished the Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji in 12th place after another incident and controversial race. The McLaren Mercedes driver was pushed into a spin by title contender Felipe Massa on lap two and dropped to the back of the field. A subsequent drive-through penalty - for a first-corner incident - left him unable to challenge for a points finish. Heikki Kovalainen retired from third place due to an engine failure on lap 17 to make it a thoroughly frustrating day for the McLaren squad.

At the top of the drivers’ championship, today’s result does little to change the overall standings: Hamilton still leads with 84 points, five ahead of Massa who was classified in seventh position. The team drop to second in the constructors’ championship with 135 points; Ferrari leads with 142 points.

Lewis Hamilton
"Obviously, I’m not happy after a result like today’s - but I’m already getting over it and tomorrow will be another day. Disappointingly, I didn’t make a great start, but I slipstreamed Kimi and went up the inside. I braked a bit late - but so did everybody. A lot of cars went wide at Turn One - and I just went a bit wider than everyone else. But you can’t undo the penalty or change today’s result. On lap two, Felipe went wide and I went up the inside, giving him room, but he tapped me quite hard into a spin.”

"There are positives to take from today; I’ve only lost two points to Felipe in the drivers’ championship, so it’s definitely not over. Now I’ll forget today ever happened and move forward; we’ve got two more races to go and my target is still to win both of them. "

Heikki Kovalainen
"Today started with so much promise and ended so disappointingly. I made a good start and, although I ran wide at the first corner, I still managed to slot in behind Robert and Fernando. I was feeling pretty confident about catching them both because the car was feeling just fantastic and then, all of a sudden, the engine stopped. That was a real pity because our reliability has been fantastic all season. Nevertheless, my pace today was good and I head to China feeling positive that we can once again show the same sort of pace we had this weekend."

Ron Dennis
"Well, today was a very challenging day. We were a bit surprised that Lewis was given a penalty in respect of the first-corner incident, simply because we’ve all seen similar first-corner incidents that triggered no such penalty. Drivers miss braking points, they run wide; these things happen. As for Heikki, he was in a very strong position, fuelled significantly longer than the cars around him, when he suffered an extremely rare engine failure. All in all, then, as far as the championship is concerned, I guess things could have been worse; but there’s no getting away from the fact that it was a disappointing weekend. However, Lewis is still five points clear in the drivers’ championship, with two races to go, and I know that our whole team will dig deep from here on in."