Whitmarsh defends Hamilton weave

Hamilton weaved several times down the start-finish straight at Sepang as he tried to break the slipstream from a pursuing Vitaly Petrov, whom he had been battling with for several laps.

And although Hamilton was given no penalty for the move, with the stewards just giving him a warning for unsportsmanlike behaviour, several rivals have said they are unhappy about what he did.

However, Whitmarsh insists that Hamilton did absolutely nothing wrong and that his driver would never race in a dangerous manner.

"The stewards looked at this and decided not to penalise Lewis," said Whitmarsh in China. "Lewis was seeking to break the tow, not prevent an overtaking move. As always Lewis drives and races passionately, but always seeks to be entirely safe."

The matter is likely to be brought up in Fridays drivers briefing in China, however, with Williams driver Rubens Barrichello expressing his own disappointment about what happened.

"I don't think this is the right thing to do," said Barrichello in China on Thursday. "When I saw it, I was by myself watching the TV and I was quite critical of it. If he was beside me I would have given him some bollocking because it wasn't right."