ESPNF1 Staff
September 13, 2011
Tonio Liuzzi was at the centre of a huge first corner crash but insists he was not to blame © Getty Images
Tonio Liuzzi does not agree with the penalty he received at the Italian Grand Prix for his part in a first corner accident, but is willing to accept it.
The stewards slapped Liuzzi with a five-place penalty after he lost control on the grass entering turn one and slid into Vitaly Petrov and Nico Rosberg. But Liuzzi felt he was forced onto the grass by Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus and could not avoid the accident.
"I came away with a five-place grid penalty for Singapore and I accepted that, but it doesn't mean I agree with the decision of the stewards," he told ESPNF1 in his post-race column. "They said that I caused the accident at the chicane, but this is not what happened out there. I'm not going to reject the stewards' decision, and at the end of the day it doesn't change much for us in Singapore, but that doesn't mean I agree with it - I know it wasn't my fault.
Asked to explain his version events, Liuzzi said Kovalainen left him with nowhere to go in the bottleneck ahead of the braking zone for turn one.
"I went to his inside because there was a lot of space, but when I was side-by-side he basically pushed me to the right and pushed me onto the grass," Liuzzi added. "It was a bad combination of him veering to the right and the track narrowing with the start of the grass and I found myself with nowhere to go.
"Once I was on the grass I completely lost control of the car because we were nearing the braking zone and I couldn't slow down properly. Once the car was on the grass there was no stopping it and I ended up crashing into Petrov and Rosberg. I'm really sorry for them because they were just passengers in this sequence, but it wasn't my fault."
Read Liuzzi's column in full here.
Credit: ESPN F1 (en.espnf1.com)
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