Felipe Massa believes Nico Rosberg's defensive manoeuvre on Lewis Hamilton in Austria went just beyond the acceptable limit but was not worthy of a post-race penalty.
Hamilton collided with Rosberg when the championship leader aggressively defended his lead on the final lap. After contact Hamilton went on to win the race and Rosberg crawled home with a damaged car to finish fourth, with both men incurring the wrath of Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.
On Thursday Mercedes confirmed it will not be imposing team orders on its drivers for the incident, which the stewards blamed on Rosberg. Massa, one of the most experienced drivers on the grid, says he questioned Rosberg's driving after seeing the incident a second time.
Asked if Rosberg had waited to late to turn right for the corner, Massa said: "But this is what everybody is doing if somebody is trying to pass you around the outside, everybody is waiting a little bit to turn. Maybe he wait a little bit too much but waiting a little bit to turn, you do it, otherwise if you turn too early the other guy can pass you on the exit, but this is part of the game. For sure this was a little bit too much.
"When I saw it the first time I thought it was normal, a race incident, but then when you see the replay, when you see the slow motion, when you see everything, for sure he passed a little bit the limit. He already paid for what he did, he finished fourth and he was penalised but he didn't lose anything so the penalty I think the FIA just wants to show they are doing something but he didn't do anything to get himself penalised."
However Massa thought Rosberg's reprimand for continuing with a damaged car was harsh, given that he slowly made his way round to the chequered flag after the incident.
"What are you going to do? He will stop? He had nothing to do. Whatever situation like that you come slowly, he came slowly anyway, he didn't disturb anybody."
Massa believes the incident would not be such a big talking point if Hamilton and Rosberg had been driving for different teams.
"The problem is because, all these talks now is because they are from the same team. Because if they were not for the same team nobody would be saying anything here, everybody would say 'ah, they are fighting. It's an amazing fight between whatever, a Ferrari and a Mercedes for the championship, this is amazing', but because they are in the same team you guys are 'ah, it's amazing what has happened', I mean we cannot forget they are fighting for the championship."