McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh was critical of Michael Schumacher's robust defenses against his driver Lewis Hamilton during the Italian Grand Prix, which he described as "pretty harsh."
The Mercedes GP racer battled hard with Hamilton over much of the Monza event, and at one point forced the British driver on to the grass at the Curva Grande so as to avoid a collision. Hamilton complained about Schumacher's driving on the team radio many times, and his team boss said that he, too, was not happy with what he saw.
Asked for his verdict on Schumacher's driving, Whitmarsh said: "Pretty harsh. I am not the least impartial but the fact is, I think he was warned twice by the stewards during the event so they presumably saw it was a bit tough. I think the one where he had Lewis on the grass was scary as hell."
Whitmarsh believes that Hamilton handled the situation brilliantly, and tempered his frustration well.
"He had a fair amount of provocation and frustration in that race, and I think someone drove him off the circuit pretty aggressively at one stage. He could, at the first corner, have stuck it out for second and lost a wing, but he was calmer than I was throughout that phase, so congratulations to him.
"He is growing and developing," he added of Hamilton. "He is going to win some races this year and set some of those [recent] issues behind him."