Schumacher lucky not to see black flag

FORMER Formula 1 driver Derek Warwick, a steward at the Hungarian Grand Prix, has revealed he wanted to disqualify Michael Schumacher from the race.

Warwick believes showing the German the black flag would have sent a better message to young drivers that such behaviour would not be tolerated.

The Mercedes veteran received a ten-place grid penalty for the next race in Belgium for the dangerous move which saw him almost edge Williams' Rubens Barrichello into the pit wall at 180mph during Sunday's race.

After initially defending his move, Schumacher yesterday issued an apology to Barrichello, who partnered him at Ferrari from 2000 to 2005.

Warwick, who competed in 162 grands prix for the likes of Toleman, Renault, Arrows and Brabham, was on the stewards panel, and the 55-year-old said: "I believe we had three laps to disqualify him, and throwing a black flag would have shown a better example to our young drivers that we will not tolerate that kind of driving.

"But by the time we got the video evidence we ran out of time and had to do it retrospectively."

Although he would have liked to have been able to take stronger action, Warwick reckons the penalty in place for the next race at Spa-Francorchamps still sends the right message. "You have to view the evidence you have and you could disqualify him from the next grand prix, or two grands prix," he continued. "But we felt a ten-place penalty is a big penalty to carry for Spa. It kind of puts him out of the race and hopefully he will learn from that."

After reviewing the incident, Schumacher said yesterday: "The stewards are right with their judgment: the manoeuvre was too severe."