Da Matta doubts penalty

Toyota's Cristiano da Matta has called for the blue flag system in Formula 1, used to warn slower cars that they are about to be lapped, should be reviewed after he lost a likely fifth place in the Monaco Grand Prix due to a drive-through penalty for ignoring them

Da Matta was on course for a top five finish when he was given the drive-through, which dropped him behind Sauber's Felipe Massa. Despite catching his fellow Brazilian in the closing stages, da Matta was unable to pass him.

"I had a clutch problem, which lost me time at my second pit stop and then I was given a drive-through penalty for apparently ignoring blue flags," said da Matta. "I really think that the situation with blue flags has to be looked into because our race was compromised a lot with the mistake that was made today.

"I was only a couple of seconds behind Rubens [Barrichello, who finished third] and I was almost able to get out in front of him after my first pit stop. It was just unfortunate that we had this blue flag incident. Basically, we had a fourth place in our hands today and came away with a sixth.

"I think that we had a good race, probably the strongest pace we have had since the beginning of the year. To finish in sixth place and to score three championship points is an excellent result for us this weekend, but we should have had even more."

Team-mate Olivier Panis finished eighth, despite starting the race from the pitlane after causing the original start to be aborted.