Ralf protests innocence at appeal hearing

The Williams star described the shunt with Rubens Barrichello and Kimi Raikkonen as a racing accident, adding that he felt he had been punished enough by the points he had lost through his retirement.

"It was definitely very annoying," Schumacher told the panel of four judges. "There is no one to blame for this crash. It was a completely normal racing accident. It could have happened to anyone in the race."

Officials for Williams, represented in the hearing by barrister Andrew Hunter, said that both Barrichello and Raikkonen were in Schumacher's blind spot, and thus their driver could not anticipate the coming accident.

However, FIA racing director Charlie Whiting dismissed this as "a tenuous argument," adding that drivers have lateral vision other then their mirrors. "It is wrong to assume that he can take the line he wants to take," said Whiting.

Barrichello and Raikkonen both gave their account of the accident at the hearing. The Ferrari ace was adamant that Schumacher was responsible.

"I tried to take avoiding action," said Barrichello. "I braked and moved a little bit. I didn't drive into Ralf. He hit me."

McLaren star Raikkonen rejected suggestions from Williams chief operations engineer Sam Michael that he could have avoided the accident by moving over onto the 90cm of green-painted concrete that was just beyond the edge of the track.

"I didn't want to drive off the course because that is not the best route," said the Finn.

The decision of the appeal judges is due to be announced tomorrow (Wednesday). We'll have the result here on autosport.com as soon as it is made public.