Villeneuve: Vettel's swipe at Hamilton was 'no big issue'

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Former world champion Jacques Villeneuve has said that Sebastian Vettel's controversial actions in Baku were 'no big issue'.

He added that he would very likely have done the same thing in the Ferrari driver's situation.

Vettel accused Lewis Hamilton of 'brake-testing' him behind the safety car during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. He pulled alongside the Mercedes and banged wheels to express his displeasure before the race restarted.

"They’re going 10mph, who cares?," Villeneuve told Motorsport.com after the race. "Of course it was ugly, but ultimately Lewis brake-tested him.

"I’m a driver, I’ve been there," he added. "Whenever a driver did that to me, then I would do whatever Seb did.

“I don’t think he was trying to hit him," Villeneuve continued. "He had one hand on the wheel and was looking at him and pointing the finger.

"You don’t hit with your wheels turned like that. You will break your own car. And not with one hand – if you’re going to hit someone, you have two hands on the wheel."

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The incident was subsequently reviewed by race stewards. Race telemetry cleared Hamilton of brake-testing his rival, but Vettel was handed a ten-second stop-and-go penalty.

"[Seb] got a penalty, the biggest he could get, I guess, according to the new rules," said Villeneuve.

However Auto Motor und Sport subsequently quoted a Baku race steward as saying they "almost" decided to disqualify Vettel during the race.

Overall Villeneuve felt that the whole thing had been good for the sport in terms of entertainment.

"We have the two guys fighting for the championship, getting angry with each other, and ultimately no damage was done. What’s the big issue?

"It’s great TV. It’s good to see that they’re on it," he said. “That’s fine, that’s okay, that’s cool. And in a way I am happy to see that drivers have emotions. It’s good, it’s fun."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.