Poor Sam Michael's first few weeks as technical director at WilliamsF1, has been a true baptism of fire.

After just two races, his cars have been disqualified three times - both in Canada and Montoya at Indianapolis - while Ralf Schumacher remains doubtful for the French, and possibly British, Grand Prix.

Although WilliamsF1 and BMW accept the rule that saw Montoya black-flagged during yesterday's race, there is widespread condemnation of a rule that allows a driver to race, and thereby risk his life, for 57 laps, for nothing. And a system that takes more than an hour to decided on an issue involving just a few seconds.

Such is the severity of Montoya's punishment, the Colombian is totally excluded from the official results, as if he didn't participate - even though the WilliamsF1 driver delivered a typically brave performance.

"I feel disappointed," was the only comment Montoya was willing to make last night, though it would have been interesting to be a fly in the team's motorhome.

"Juan's car was disqualified because, if you decide to change your car on the grid, the driver must be off the grid himself, not necessarily the car, within 15 seconds of the start," Frank Williams explained to reporters last night. "We were off about 13 seconds. Juan is very unhappy about it but I guess you could say we got some mileage on the car for the sponsors."

The sponsors may well be happy, but it's unlikely that the thousands of race fans that packed the grandstands, particularly those that had travelled to support the former Indy 500 winner, would be quite as understanding.

"I haven't talked to the FIA people," admitted BMW's Mario Theissen. "They will probably say that they were very busy with the incidents that happened on the track, but certainly we would have preferred to know immediately what was going on.

"It happened on the installation lap so there was plenty of time even before the start and early in the race to declare that that was not correct.

"The issue itself is clear, it's black and white," he admitted. "He hadn't left the grid 15 seconds before the start of the installation lap, so that is not open to discussion."

As a reader points out in our latest Talking Point, "compare it to a footballer, who has played very well and scored some goals and then the match official simply decide that the player deserves the red card because of an old incident that he has just remembered or been told about. Imagine that his goals are subsequently disallowed.. it's not realistic at all".

Quite, and that's the view of 'an ordinary' race fan.