Felipe Massa unhappy with Mercedes F1 drivers over warm-up laps

The Williams driver was left behind at the start of Sunday's Silverstone race after his clutch overheated on the way to the grid.

He claimed this was the result of having to stop twice on the formation lap, headed by Nico Rosberg, and led to his anti-stall system kicking in.

Massa was then caught up in Kimi Raikkonen's first-lap accident on the Wellington Straight, which caused him to retire with driveshaft damage.

The Brazilian said previous complaints about the speed of the formation laps headed by Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton had been ignored by the sport's governing body, despite race director Charlie Whiting saying formation laps would be placed under greater scrutiny earlier this season.

"I'm sure if you check, our formation lap in the last race when we were in front was much quicker than the normal races," Massa said.

"They [Mercedes] go slow for a reason, sometimes it's not good for the other teams.

"The FIA are saying we can't go so slow, but they are not penalising everybody.

"I stopped two times [at Silverstone]. I pulled the clutch, I was waiting.

"They are doing it for a reason. They [Merc] never say if they're going so slow, why?"

"We always complain, there has been a lot already in drivers briefing. Charlie said he was going to look at that but he's not given any penalties."

While Massa also suggested Raikkonen could have avoided the first-lap incident that ended both their races, he said the problems on the formation lap were the root cause of his short-lived grand prix.

"All these cars go very slow on the formation lap and stop in the track, and my clutch went to a very high temperature so it didn't work [at the start]," he added.

"The car was flying and today we would have finished both [cars] on the podium, and we would have been third in the [constructors'] championship. So it's really a shame."