Stewards at Valencia said Felipe Massa can keep his European grand prix victory, despite a post-race investigation into how he rejoined the pitlane arguably unsafely following a stop.

During the race, the FIA officials delayed making a decision about the incident, which involved the Ferrari pit crew releasing the Brazilian driver into the path of Force India's Adrian Sutil.

The situation raised suggestions that Massa, 27, could lose his victory through the imposition of a time penalty, or face a ten-position drop for the forthcoming Belgian grand prix.

But the stewards have simply fined Massa 10,000 euros.

Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni said during the Valencia race that he believed Massa should not be penalised because Sutil was not disadvantaged by the incident.

Massa, meanwhile, was actually critical of the German driver.

"I think it wasn't very clever from Adrian's side. I was the leader and he was lapped," he said.

"He saw me coming, he needs to let me by; I had to back off and lost a lot of time," Massa added.

Source: GMM