In the wake of the recent ruling whereby only deliberate cases of 'blocking' will be punished, race stewards at Shanghai have ruled that an incident involving Rubens Barrichello and Pedro de la Rosa, did not merit the Honda driving being punished.

de la Rosa claimed that towards the end of the third phase of qualifying, when he was about to start a hot lap, he was impeded by a car (Barrichello) leaving the pitlane, and had to run wide to avoid a collision: "It was about three corners before I was able to get past by which point my tyres had cooled off," claimed the Spaniard.

Having spoken to both drivers, and witnessed video footage of the incident, the stewards ruled that Barrichello's action was not deliberate and that consequently no punishment was called for.

The official report read: "Having heard the explanation of both the competitors representatives and the drivers, the stewards determine that the incident requires no further action, as enquiries show that as a result of a system fault, the blue lights at pit exit were not illuminated to indicate the presence of a car on the pit straight. Nor was the blue flag waved at the pit exit."

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