Michael Schumacher denied cheating deliberately to gain pole position as the Monaco Grand Prix plunged into controversy during qualifying on Saturday.
The seven-times champion dominated the session to grab his 67th pole position but was afterwards accused of cheating by rival drivers and his former boss, Renault chief Flavio Briatore.
With Schumacher already sitting on pole position, the 37-year-old German parked his car on the track at the Rascasse hairpin in the dying seconds of the session — bringing out yellow flags and denying Briatore’s driver, world champion Spaniard
Fernando Alonso, the chance to topple him.
A disgusted Briatore said: ”It looked deliberate, and everybody is saying it, not just me. It wasn’t like he hit the barriers — he just parked the car. I can’t believe it.
”I don’t know why he needed to do it — that’s the way Ferrari manage.”
An equally frustrated Alonso (24) who will line up alongside Schumacher on the front row for Sunday’s race, said: ”For sure, I’d have been on pole if I did not see the yellow flags. I was three tenths [of a second] up on the lap until then.
”I am not going to give my true opinion on the matter here though. It is not the right place or time.”
Schumacher has always courted controversy throughout his 15-year career in Formula One, with race bans, penalties and dubious incidents never being far from the German.
But he denied that this latest episode was anything other then an accident, and said: ”I didn’t know I was fastest, so I was really pushing on that lap. I came into the bend hard and went wide. I checked with the [pit] guys what position I was and they
said P1.
”I tried to find reverse, but I didn’t know the traffic situation with who was coming around the corner so I didn’t want to back-up without knowing what was coming. Then I stalled.” – Sapa-AFP