Romain Grosjean was surprised that Nico Hülkenberg was unpunished for their first lap, first corner tangle during the Hungarian Grand Prix, especially after Max Verstappen did take a penalty for a similar incident with Daniel Ricciardo at turn two.
The Frenchman has called upon the FIA to make it clearer what is defined as fair racing after finding himself pushed off track after relatively heavy contact with Hülkenberg at the Hungaroring, with the Haas F1 Team driver dropping down the order as a result.
Grosjean does not believe there should be extra leniency for incidents at turn one on lap one, particularly when back at Spa-Francorchamps in 2012, he was banned for a race for causing a first lap, first corner crash.
“It was a big hit and I went pretty high in the air,” said Grosjean to Motorsport.com. “He had lots of space on the inside, but he locked things up.
“I don’t see the difference between Nico and Verstappen, to be fair. Again, the stewards’ consistency is a bit strange.
“It was Turn 1 – but Spa-Francorchamps in 2012 was Turn 1, and we can’t do whatever we want. Turn 1, lap two, lap 10, it’s the same thing. You can’t run over another car.”
Grosjean says that he will bring the incident up with FIA race director Charlie Whiting during the next race weekend at Spa-Francorchamps at the end of August.
“It’s come up before, and I went to see Charlie after that briefing, because there was some great racing between [Sebastian] Vettel and Verstappen in the last race, but it was off track and coming back, so I said what can we do?” said Grosjean.
“We want racing, but we don’t want wheel-banging, we’re not in NASCAR.”
