Lewis Hamilton was right to pay the penalty for his inability to fix an incorrect engine setting which scuppered his European Grand Prix chances, British rookie Jolyon Palmer has said.
Hamilton finished only fifth at the Azerbaijan race after he spent 12 laps desperately trying to resolve the issue which his Mercedes team were forbidden from telling him how to change under Formula One's strict radio rules.
The world champion described the situation as dangerous as he attempted a number of different settings on his complex steering wheel, while driving at speeds in excess of 220 mph.
Hamilton called for the radio ban, introduced at the start of the season, to be re-addressed by the sport's governing body, the FIA. Former world champions Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso were also vocal in their support of the Briton, with the former labelling the ban as "a joke".
But speaking ahead of this week's Austrian Grand Prix, Palmer said: "The radio ban is really good. Some people don't know how to change the modes and then they get slower. They should do.
"If you can know what's going on with your car then it's an advantage. I genuinely think it's a good thing for Formula One.
"We have to think a lot more about what's going on the car. The engineers can always see if something is not right, but they can't tell you what. They can tell you something in a code that makes you think, but they can't say what to change. Otherwise the drivers are like robots, and engineers tell them everything."
Hamilton will head into Sunday's Austrian race - the ninth round of the championship - 24 points adrift of his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg who strolled to victory on the streets of Baku.
It marked Rosberg's first win since he crashed out of May's Spanish Grand Prix following a collision with Hamilton.
The first-lap incident in Barcelona was partially caused by Rosberg starting the race in an engine mode which deprived him of full power on the exit of turn three.
"It makes for a lot more variety," Palmer added of the blanket radio ban. "In Barcelona when Nico is in the wrong mode, Lewis gets a run, and then they crash.
"I don't know the ins and outs, but I imagine he could have been told before in the old rules that he was in the wrong setting at the start and it would have made it all very neutral, a Mercedes one-two, a boring race.
"I think most drivers accept it's a good thing. It's not really complicated. Most of the stuff we do is pretty routine."
Source: PA
