Michael Schumacher should have been disqualified, says steward

A steward at the Hungarian Grand Prix today revealed he wanted to disqualify Michael Schumacher from the race.

Derek Warwick, a former Formula One driver, believes showing the controversial German the black flag would have sent a clear message to drivers that such behaviour would not be tolerated.

The Mercedes veteran was hit with a 10-place grid penalty for the next race in Belgium after he almost edged Williams' Rubens Barrichello into the Hungaroring pit wall at 180mph.

After initially defending his move, Schumacher yesterday apologised to his former Ferrari team-mate but Warwick believes that the seven-time champion got off lightly.

Warwick, the drivers' representative on the stewards panel in Budapest, said: "I believe we had three laps to disqualify him and throwing a black flag would have shown a better example to our young drivers that we will not tolerate that kind of driving.

"But by the time we got the video evidence we ran out of time and we had to do it retrospectively.

"We interviewed Rubens and Michael and it was kind of disappointing how Michael handled it, and we had no option but to give him a 10-place penalty. If we had enough laps we could have disqualified him but you have to have video evidence and make sure all four stewards agree."