Tuesday 10 June at 14:32 : Lewis Hamilton's ten-position grid penalty will make it almost impossible for him to win the French grand prix in two weeks, McLaren executive Martin Whitmarsh insists.

The Mercedes-powered team did not protest the stewards' decision on Sunday afternoon at Montreal, but Whitmarsh initially told the media that he thought the punishment was "severe".

"There was a different view taken at Monaco," he is quoted as saying by the Daily Mail, referring to the stewards decision at Monaco to not penalise Kimi Raikkonen for punting Adrian Sutil out of the race.

In a media document on Monday, however, Whitmarsh accepted Hamilton's Montreal penalty as "hard but fair".

"Hard in the sense that it clearly makes Lewis's task more difficult in Magny Cours, but fair on the grounds that we have no argument with their contention that he did cause an avoidable accident," the Briton said.

"In this instance, we'll take the loss of a likely win and the 10-place grid penalty squarely on the chin."

Hamilton's teammate Heikki Kovalainen had an off-pace weekend in Canada, but Whitmarsh said the Finn is now "our best hope of winning" in France next weekend.