Whiting responds to Grosjean criticism towards stewards

After Romain Grosjean's fierce criticism towards the stewards for handing him a penalty during the French Grand Prix, F1 racing director Charlie Whiting has responded to explain why the Frenchman got penalized during the first lap.

It took quite a while for the stewards to hand Grosjean his penalty, but the Haas driver was eventually handed a five-second penalty for his nudge on Esteban Ocon's Force India. As always, Grosjean got quite angry on the team radio when he heard the news.

After the race, he hadn't really cooled off. He half-joked that the stewards must've been drinking wine when making the decision to hand him the penalty, as well as claiming that he did nothing wrong.

Now, Whiting explained his side of the story. 

"Romain seemed to be a little upset about his penalty that he was given," he told Crash.net. 

That's putting it lightly, Charlie.

"I doubt if anyone has seen this footage as the incident was dealt with during the race and I don’t think Romain has properly seen it either," he continued.

"You can see just before the start, you can see Romain’s moved over already and Esteban is alongside him.

"I think it’s fairly clear that Romain just bumped into him - and that's why the stewards penalized him.

"He’d already moved him over, so two of his wheels were off the track anyway, and then he just gave him a final little help on his way."

More than anything, Whiting was disappointed with the way Grosjean dealt with it. It's fine to disagree, Whiting argues, but he should be talking to the race directors instead of going to the press immediately.

"It’s a bit odd to go directly to the press and say that he felt he was hard done by.

"It would have been good if he’d come to us after the race and said: ‘Look I really feel I was harshly dealt with there, could you tell us why?’ And we would have shown him that footage."

Whiting clearly doesn't know the hot-head that is Romain Grosjean. He always talks before he thinks!