Lotus team principal Eric Boullier criticised the drive-through penalty given to Romain Grosjean for his overtaking move on Felipe Massa on the outside of turn four during the race.

“I feel this penalty was a little bit too much,” said Boullier after the race. “He had nowhere to go, he was a little bit four wheels on the track, just for a couple of centimetres and obviously it’s very harsh, when you get such a penalty, to recover when you’re fighting for the podium.”

“The Ferrari is just next to him so he would have crashed or lose obviously most of the time,” Boullier added. “There is a clear rule, of course. Obviously it’s in our favour if there’s no penalty but I think the penalty itself is a bit harsh for that.”

The stewards ruled that: “In order to overtake car four [Massa], car eight [Grosjean] left the track. This overtaking move would not otherwise have been possible.”

Boullier appreciated the difficulty of the decision the stewards faced and said: “I have to pay tribute to them, to be honest, it’s difficult to draw the line, obviously.”

“It’s a harsh penalty for what we could say a brilliant move. In other situations it could be a normal penalty and understandable. But I will have a word with them when I’ve cooled down a little.”

Grosjean said he thought he had “at least two wheels on the white line on the track” when he made the move.

Boullier praised Grosjean’s performance in the race: “He obviously had high ambitions at the beginning of the race but this is a race and I was just telling him he did a super weekend again. Nothing wrong, no foot wrong, and two in a row now.”

“It means he understood what he built up since the beginning of the season and building up over last year as well. And clearly now I think he has the baseline to build a strong weekend like this and fight wit the kids like Kimi and Alonso and Vettel so that’s pretty good.”

Grosjean has also been summoned to see the stewards along with Jenson Button following contact between the two during the race.

2013 Hungarian Grand Prix

Image ?�?� Lotus/LAT