Whiting defends Mercedes' pit stop bluff

FIA Race Director, Charlie Whiting has no problem with the Mercedes team's actklns yesterday in the pits.

The Mercedes team would anticipate when a Ferrari driver would come into the pit-lane and then attempt to slow the Ferrari down by slightly blocking their way in the pits, and thet did this twice.

Whiting, though, doesn't believe that this is too bad and describes it as "part of the game".

"My feeling is that it is all part of the game," Whiting told PlanetF1. "We don't like teams hanging around in the pit-lane if they are not actually doing a pit-stop, but if they come out as if they are going to do one... if they did it every lap I think we would have something to say.

"But they may well have been thinking about doing one and then changed their mind, so unless someone does something overly incorrect I don't think we will do anything about it."

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff denies claims that these actions were taken to try and slow Ferrari's pit-stops down.

"It wasn't a phantom stop," Wolff claimed. "You need to be prepared if you undercut or overcut. We didn't know if Kimi (Raikkonen) was coming in so the message was to do with the oppopsite. Being the opposite means you need to have the pit crew prepared."