Head Berates 'Disgusting' Ferrari Tactics

BMW-Williams technical director Patrick Head admitted he was disgusted by Ferrari's decision to force Rubens Barrichello to allow teammate Michael Schumacher to win the Austrian Grand Prix.

Head branded the move "cynical" and "disgusting" and insisted the Williams team never considered using similar tactics during their time at the top of the sport in the early 1990's.

"I feel very sorry for Rubens and I have to say that that was the most cynical event that I've experienced in 27 years in Formula One," Head said. "I think for a team like Ferrari, when you have produced a car as brilliant as they have done, you have an obligation to Formula One and to the spectators and that is to provide a motor race.

"When we produced a car that was ahead of the others we provided some motor racing. What we saw here was a disgusting, cynical act."

But former Williams driver Damon Hill, a pundit on Sky's F1 Digital, responded by claiming that he had been asked to move over for Alain Prost.

He said: "I wonder what all that was about when I was racing with Alain Prost - it must have been an hallucination. I seem to remember helping Alain Prost to a fourth world title which required me not to race in certain circumstances."

McLaren's Ron Dennis, whose team was embroiled in a major team orders controversy in 1998 when David Coulthard moved over to allow Mika Hakkinen to win in Australia, kept out of the argument.

"It is clear that Ferrari have a very dominant position at the moment and they have worked hard for that," he told reporters. "How they choose to control their team and determine how a result should be is their business but that is not the way we run our team."