Formula One race director Charlie Whiting said he was not made aware of debris on the track which cruelly denied Valtteri Bottas an Azerbaijan Grand Prix victory.
Bottas was heading for a first win of the season in Baku when he suffered a puncture with only two laps to go, gifting his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton top spot on the podium.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff claimed debris "the size of a fist" did the damage to Bottas' car, but Whiting defended the marshals following an action-packed race which included several dramatic incidents.
"We didn't get any reports of debris. For the whole race the marshals have been remarkable, they really were very good on reporting debris," said Whiting.
"It probably happened between [Pierre] Gasly and [Kevin] Magnussen, the incident they had, but we didn't have any reports of debris there.
"Of course we always try to keep the track clear of debris, but it's a little difficult to clean up if you don't know about it.
"We had been having continual reports of debris throughout the whole race and we were dealing with it, and I felt we had dealt with every bit of debris on track.
"When the race restarted, we were pretty confident that everything was clear on the track.
"I'm perfectly at ease with the decisions that were made around that safety car intervention."
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