Hamilton penalty prompts French plot

Hamilton undid a scintillating qualifying drive for pole position in Montreal when he ploughed into the back of Kimi Raikkonen after failing to see the pit-lane red light the Ferrari driver had been observing. It knocked both drivers out of the race and cost Hamilton not just the lead in the world drivers' championship but a 10-place drop down the starting grid at Magny-Cours on June 22.

"We're going into France with a 10-place penalty for Lewis so that will clearly affect our approach," McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh said.

He continued: "Without giving too much away, I suspect he'll run a little bit longer in the first stint than would otherwise have been the case. We haven't modelled it yet, but intuitively that's what we'll probably do."

Whitmarsh said his team regretted ruining Raikkonen's race and had no problems with the punishment Hamilton received from FIA race stewards in Canada.

"You have to feel sorry for Kimi and Ferrari, who were the innocent victims on this occasion," Whitmarsh said. "We regard the stewards' decision as hard but fair. Hard in the sense that it clearly makes Lewis's task more difficult in Magny-Cours, but fair on the grounds that we have no argument with their contention that he did cause an avoidable accident.

"Sometimes severe consequences can be the results of split-second misjudgements. And, in this instance, we'll take the loss of a likely win and the 10-place grid penalty squarely on the chin."

Hamilton's relegation down the grid means McLaren's best hopes of success now rest with Finland's Heikki Kovalainen, who had another disappointing race at the weekend, managing only ninth, more than 54 seconds behind maiden race winner Robert Kubica of BMW Sauber.

"This weekend didn't quite come together for him," Whitmarsh said before adding: "The reality is that, in every race he's done for us so far, Heikki has done a fantastic job and if you look at fuel-corrected times, he's frequently out-qualified Lewis.

"This weekend, for whatever reason, he didn't quite get on it. We know he puts a lot of pressure on himself but, as a team, we very much believe in him and think he's robust enough in his approach that he'll recover in time. In reality, he's the guy who is our best hope of winning the French Grand Prix."