Dennis Defends Raikkonen Over Montoya Incident

McLaren team boss Ron Dennis said Finn Kimi Raikkonen did not deliberately block Juan Pablo Montoya in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix and played down the significance of the incident.

Raikkonen slowed on his in-lap after his third qualifying run and hampered Williams driver Montoya, with the Colombian expressing his frustration on the team's radio. The young Finn ran onto the old pitlane entrance to give Montoya room and Dennis backed Raikkonen and claimed he did not intentionally obstruct the Williams driver.

"I think Montoya has got to be a little bit fair," Dennis said. "Kimi took the old pitlane entrance and that wasn't the correct thing to do as regards to staying on the circuit. It was something Charlie (Whiting) accepted was the right thing to do and what more can we do than try and get completely out of the way.

"It wasn't a deliberate block and Montoya accepts that."

Raikkonen and Montoya have been involved in a series of incidents in recent races, but Dennis refused to get embroiled in the nature of the on-track clashes.

"I don't like getting embroiled in these issues but the fact is that some things have a degree of consistency and I know that he does seem to get into a few problems," he added. "Some of them are of his own making and some of them are that he is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"But that is part of being a racing driver and I know who I would like to have in the car and I'm pretty happy with what we have."

Dennis claimed that Raikkonen, who landed his first-ever front row grid position today, could have snatched pole from Michael Schumacher had it not been for a mistake by Jaguar's Pedro de la Rosa in front.

"It's a little disappointing as well," he said. "He had the performance to do it and as you saw there was a Jaguar who put some dirt on and was in the way so we lost a bit of time. If he had put that lap together he would have been on pole by a few thousandths so it is nice to know that he can do it."