Nov.19 (GMM) Eric Boullier has played down Vitaly Petrov's widely reported attack on the Renault team.

The Russian driver's manager Oksana Kossatchenko said on Friday that the 27-year-old had apologised for the "emotional" outburst.

His boss Boullier also played down the remarks by explaining that they were originally said to Russian television immediately after the Abu Dhabi race.

"The race was tough, he was upset not to have scored points, he was exhausted," said the Frenchman. "Drivers are not robots, they're human beings.

"We take this incident as exactly this -- an incident. Vitaly has apologised to the team and sent an email to all the staff at Enstone. As far as we are concerned, the matter is closed."

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