Jun.25 (GMM) The two days since the chequered flag at Magny-Cours did little to quieten rumblings about the spate of penalties incurred by McLaren drivers in recent times.

Following Lewis Hamilton's ten-place drop for his Montreal pitlane crash, the British driver was given a controversial drive-through penalty for passing Sebastian Vettel illegally at Magny-Cours last Sunday.

"I would never have given out a penalty for that," triple world champion Niki Lauda told the German newspaper Bild, whose headline wondered, 'Why is Mercedes always punished?'

In qualifying in France, meanwhile, Heikki Kovalainen was ordered to drop five places on the grid for blocking Mark Webber in qualifying.

But the Swiss newspaper Blick quotes Red Bull racer Webber as wondering after the incident: "Did someone block me?"

While the Hamilton drive-through was regarded by some a marginal call, it is also true that stewards could have ordered black and orange flags to be waved at Kimi Raikkonen's flailing Ferrari at Magny-Cours.

So why was the Finn, who finished the race second, allowed to keep driving with his right exhaust pipe hanging on by nothing more than a thin cable?

"The race director considered the risk to be low, as the part in question was light," a FIA spokesperson is quoted as saying by GPWeek.