Sunday March 17th, 2002

Juan Pablo Montoya said he was "pissed off" with the race stewards' decision to give him a 'drive-through' penalty during Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix, and suggested it was done to make an example of him following the first corner pile-up at the Australian race two weeks ago.

The Colombian, who finished second behind his Williams-BMW teammate Ralf Schumacher, went so far as to suggest the reasoning was 'bullshit.'

"I think it was very unfair. I gave him (Michael Schumacher) the room, he understeered off a bit, he touched me and that was it. It was a racing accident," he said of his collision with the quadruple World Champion on the first lap of Sunday's incident-filled race.

"I think that after what happened at the first race, they went a bit extreme and I had to take it. The stewards had everyone saying 'they should have done something' and they didn't in Australia."

He said he felt he had recovered well from the accident and was doing a good job climbing through the field until he was told of his penalty. "It was going well until then," he said. "I had a few words on the radio and then I couldn't do anything. I just drove through and had to go out and do it again.

"I think the stewards wanted to show they are really strong and if anybody does anything we are going to give you a penalty. Bullshit like that."

There was no immediate reaction from the sport's governing body, the FIA, after Montoya's outburst, but various observers were reminded of an incident in the past when Canadian Jacques Villeneuve was called to Paris to explain himself for such language.

Published at 11:58:08 GMT