Dennis: no one to blame for Hamilton exit

McLaren boss Ron Dennis thinks that no one should take any blame for Lewis Hamilton's exit from the Chinese Grand Prix

Although Hamilton's chances of winning the championship in Shanghai were wrecked when he ran off the track on badly worn wet tyres on the entry to the pits, Dennis thinks it was just a simple consequence of racing.

"It's too extreme to say anyone made a mistake in this," said Dennis. "It's been a very competitive season between our drivers and it will go on for another Grand Prix.

"We were very keen to maintain the lead. It was so comfortable for him (Hamilton) to pull out the gap on Kimi that he gave the tyres a little bit more of a hard time. But Fernando and the two Ferraris stopped after him.

"I don't think we did anything dramatically wrong and neither did Lewis. But the circuit was considerably drier than the pitlane entrance. That's what made the difference."

He added: "It was easy to say, we could have stopped earlier, but would it have made a difference? Everybody had the same thought. Last year with Alonso, when he went onto intermediates, they immediately grained and he was extremely slow.

"All the top teams, Ferrari and ourselves, were trying to get through the rain and straight onto a dry tyre."

Interestingly, Dennis said that the team's focus in making a decision about delaying Hamilton's change of tyres was not in what Ferrari were up to, but what Fernando Alonso was doing.

"The problem was rain and his (Hamilton's) tyres were in the worst condition. But we weren't at all fazed about Kimi. We weren't racing Kimi, we were basically racing Fernando.

"Kimi winning and Lewis coming second was adequate. It just didn't quite work out that way."