McLaren Call for Tyre Rule Rethink

The Finn had flat-stopped his front right tyre and suffered a strong vibration in the latter part of the race. The vibration got worse by the lap and eventually caused his suspension to shatter in the fastest part of the circuit with just one lap left.

Sauber driver Felipe Massa also suffered from a vibration during the race, his front left tyre eventually damaging his front wing.

Current regulations say drivers must use the same set of tyres throughout the whole race unless a wheel gets damaged.

Whitmarsh said Raikkonen's accident proved the rules put the drivers at risk.

"Kimi acknowledged in the end that he shouldn't have flat-spotted the tyre, we took a decision, we would have had to negotiate on the tyre situation anyway, obviously it has created a precedent now, which demonstrates how dangerous it is," said Whitmarsh.

"It has been commented on all the way through, these regulations have given us a dilemma, which we would rather not have. But Kimi accepted we made the right decision.

"We are here to win, rather than fight for third place, we are here to take points from Alonso."

BMW motorsport chief Mario Theissen agreed with his rival in calling for a rule change.

"I would prefer to have a standard tyre but then to change it as often as you want during the race," he said. "The main reason to introduce the current rules is to save money and I think we could save more with a standard spec tyre with no testing and then change them as often as you want.

"One has to closely watch the situation. I was pleasantly surprised in the early races of the season because switching from three or four sets to one per race is quite a big change and I expected more problems than we had so to me it I was quite a surprise what we saw today."