Formula 1 managing director Ross Brawn has disagreed with Sebastian Vettel's on-track antics at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix but admires the German's passion. Vettel was highly frustrated after feeling Hamilton had brake checked him as they prepared for the safety car restart.
The Ferrari driver pulled alongside Hamilton and swerved into him, resulting in a 10 second stop/go penalty. Brawn also thinks that if Hamilton didn't have an issue with his headrest that forced him to pit, he would have won the race and there would not be so much hubbub around the situation.
"Sebastian did something he shouldn't have done and got penalised for it," Brawn told the BBC. "If we hadn't had a technical problem we would be sat here with Lewis having scored substantially more points than he did, so Lewis would have won the race and that would have resulted in a different complexion. It wasn't pre-meditated that's for sure, it was reaction to huge amount of adrenalin and passion running through these guys' systems."
Despite the collision, Brawn doesn't think that the two will lose respect for each other. So far this season, both Vettel and Hamilton have been in praise of one another and Brawn doesn't believe that the relationship will turn stale due to the clash.
"There's huge respect between them and that hasn't changed," Brawn added. "There's a spike in that respect which will calm down. You don't have one incident which destroys everything before. It wasn't that severe of an event. Some fierce competition fought in the right way is what Formula 1 is about.
"Perhaps this will add a nice edge to the competition but we're not advocating one approach of the other. There was heat, several red hot moments and your perception of what's going on can sometimes get through. I don't believe Lewis did anything wrong and Sebastian misread the situation, which is understandable in the intensity of the battle they were having."
Fergal Walsh
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I'd say he has had enough of a reprimand. You want a public punishment? British media's totally unbiased and not at all unfair views on the incident should be sufficient. The acidity over at Sky caused my stomach ulcers to open up again. The fact that Hamilton werent punished (apart from with kar... [Read more]