Jacques Villeneuve has joined several others, including Bernie Ecclestone, Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher, all of whom have defended Lewis Hamilton’s driving skills.
The former-Formula 1 world champion back the McLaren drivers aggression and has urged the FIA race stewards to stop penalising mistakes and instead concentrate on dirty driving.
The 40-year-old should know what he’s on about having battled wheel-to-wheel with Michael Schumacher for many of his 11 years in F1.
“F1 is giving penalties for people making mistakes instead of for people driving dirty and that is wrong,” said Villeneuve.
“Mistakes happen. You run into each other, that’s life, that’s racing and too bad. Then you see a lot of weaving and nasty stuff happening and there’s no penalties for that. That’s where it’s wrong.”
The Canadian believes fans want to see aggression from the drivers, even if it means they make contact – but the FIA is discouraging drivers from doing so.
“Lewis [Hamilton] is racing very aggressively and he forgets to use his head once in a while so he ends up crashing into people, but that should not be stopped, it’s racing. That’s what you want to see: battles. If every time someone tries to do that there’s a penalty, what’s the point?
“You need to let the drivers go for it and if they bang wheels, too bad. It’s fun, it’s a good show, the fans are up in the grandstands and they can scream and shout about it… that’s good, that’s what you want.”
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