SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium -- Esteban Gutierrez feels his five-place grid penalty for blocking another driver in practice was "very harsh" and highlights inconsistencies in decisions from the stewards.
While on a flying lap during Saturday morning's practice session Manor's Pascal Wehrlein was forced onto the grass to avoid Gutierrez, who was driving slowly just over the brow of the blind Eau Rouge hill. After bailing out from the high speed corner Wehrlein labelled Gutierrez a "f---ing idiot" on the radio and demanded the stewards penalise the Mexican driver, which they did, adding three penalty points to his superlicence for good measure.
Gutierrez said Haas had not informed him Wehrlein was approaching.
"It was a miscommunication error," Gutierrez explained. "Basically I didn't get the message from my engineer that he was coming and then by the time he came from the back he came very quickly. I left some space to the right for the same reason, but then when he comes very quickly I cannot make an aggressive move because if I make the move to the wrong direction, it can be even worse.
"I saw that he tried to go to the left and then he changed to the right so it's the kind of situation where it's better to stay kind of straight because otherwise it can be very dangerous."
Gutierrez's incident came shortly before Kevin Magnussen angered Sebastian Vettel by cutting him up in the final sector, though the Renault driver escaped without a penalty. Gutierrez thinks that is an example of double standards.
When asked if he felt the penalty was harsh, he replied: "Very harsh, especially considering that Magnussen didn't get anything. Very harsh. Honestly it's up to [the stewards] to decide the judgement but at least be consistent and today they were not consistent.
"I respect them a lot, I came there with the right approach, I explained my situation and I have explained that to you but the final decision was... It's just an unfair situation to see that somebody who had a similar situation got no penalty and I got a five-place grid penalty.
"It's a painful miscommunication mistake, definitely. It was not intentional of course, it was practice and it was a risky situation, in that corner it's probably important. I think we can move on, this will not affect anything, my approach for the race."
Wehrlein had calmed down by his post-qualifying media session, where he revealed Gutierrez had apologised before the pair visited the stewards.
"He's a really nice guy, I like him," Wehrlein said. "It was his mistake and it shouldn't happen. It's an easy thing to avoid because you are on a slow lap, so it was his mistake but I'm not angry with him because he's a nice guy and he apologised."
Explaining the incident from his perspective, Wehrlein said: "It was really close. For me it was a shocking moment of course. You are coming out of Eau Rouge, you can't see anything and he was on a slow lap, I was on a fast lap, so the speed difference was more than 100km/h. The problem is when you're coming out of Eau Rouge and all of a sudden there is someone in front of you and driving very slowly, then it's a big surprise for you.
"The even bigger surprise was that he was on the racing line. I thought he would stay on the right so I moved to the left but then he changed direction again and to avoid a big crash I went on the grass and I was lucky that nothing happened. I could have lost the car on the grass easily, I could have crashed into him, but in the end it was an unlucky situation. That's it."