FIA demands report over Hamilton abuse
Publications on Monday reported that Spain's motor racing federation, the RFEA, has been instructed to produce a full report into the events at Circuit de Catalunya, where Hamilton and his McLaren team were treated as hate figures by a large partisan crowd.
The reports cited sources close to the FIA as warning that Spain risks losing its grands prix, at Barcelona and on the streets of Valencia, if the federation cannot contain further instances of racial abuse, including vocal taunts and banners.
British news agency Reuters quotes a spokesman for the Paris body as saying it has written to the RFEA to "know what measures were put in place to deal with the incidents and what will be put in place to ensure there is no repetition of such abuse in the future".
23-year-old Hamilton on Monday said he was "sad" about the controversy, explaining that the experience of testing at Montmelo last weekend was "not pleasant".
"The only thing that I have done is to try to give the best of myself and try to win the championship, at no point have I tried to deliberately prejudice Fernando (Alonso), but the fight has been very tough and my image in Spain has been severely damaged," he told sportlifepress.com.