Barrichello: Sato was amateur

Sato needed to pit for a new nose cone after the pair made contact and retired soon after when his engine blew, while Barrichello went on to help Ferrari to its fourth 1-2 in seven races.

"I'm sorry to say that I thought it was a bit too amateur from Sato to do that, because he wasn't in a position to try and overtake," Barrichello said. "He came completely sideways and luckily I saw the nose coming and I just took avoiding action. He could have eventually overtaken me because he was fast enough, but it didn't need to be that lap. He wasn't in contention on that lap."

The TV evidence, however, did not point to Sato being completely sideways and BAR team boss David Richards had nothing but praise for his man.

"There will be a debate about whether it was an over-optimistic manoeuvre and people will have their opinions," he said, "But at the end of the day we employ racing drivers and we want them to race right to the last lap. And if there's an opportunity there we have to try. That's the way the team's going to be; that's the way the drivers are going to be. Taku was a hero - that's what racing drivers are made of. They're the kind of people we should be applauding.

"The sport needs heroes. It needs drivers who don't win races by calculating the result on a computer the day before - it needs people who take up every opportunity and challenge until the last lap. I'd rather we were seen as a fighting team and a challenging team rather than one that sat down and calculated everything beforehand and ran out a computer model of how they will perform. Because that makes it boring for everyone.

"Ferrari are superb and there's no taking that away from them, but that's not the kind of racing people want to see in the grandstands."