Webber blames media for racism storm.

Mark Webber has accused the British and Spanish media of whipping up a frenzy around the recent abuse of Lewis Hamilton, and claims that it would not be fair for Spain to lose either of its two grands prix this season as a result of the actions of a small minority.

While Hamilton returned to work at Jerez on Tuesday without a repeat of the mocking that accompanied his every move last time out, Webber insisted that rivalry between the Briton and former McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso had been the main reason behind the fans' actions, although he admitted that those who had 'blacked-up' had probably taken the issue a little too far.

"There were a few guys who were absolutely out of order, and that's what the whole thing has been hung on," the forthright Aussie told BBC Sport, "The individuals need to be punished, but to take it out on the whole sport and the country is wrong.

"You had a lot of fans who were there with their young kids on a Sunday, so why should you stuff it all for them because of a few guys?"

FIA president Max Mosley reacted to the Barcelona test incident by immediately threatening to cancel Spain's role in the F1 calendar, but Webber reckons that, while not denying there is a racist element, the whole issue has been blown out of proportion.

"We have two races in Spain, they will be extremely well attended and the fans won't like Lewis - and probably won't for a long time - but that's the way they are. They didn't like Michael [Schumacher] either," he noted, "Obviously, there is a racism angle because Lewis is black, and they will draw on that and that's something they will use to get under people's skin, but you just have to figure out a way not to let that happen.

"I thought the atmosphere at the test was quite cool - there were thousands of people making a lot of noise and we'd never seen that at a test before. But, obviously, there were a few guys who had overstepped the mark, unquestionably, to paint themselves up. They had probably had a few lemonades, or we don't know what their mental state was, but most of the people were there having a different sort of Sunday afternoon. They had come to see their hero.

"They are totally, totally biased towards Fernando, as any sporting nation is, [but] the over-reaction of the media..... it was five guys who had turned up, and you can't do that at all, but take it back a bit. It's totally controllable and we can get on top of it.

"If we are professional and organised, that stuff just doesn't get to the front line. It can be stopped so much further downstream. We need to address it further back. You do not want airport security at a grand prix, where people are checking your bag for excessive amounts of make-up. So, how do you draw the line? It's difficult. They need to be able to control the individuals and move on as they do in other cases."