1996 Formula 1 World Champion Damon Hill has backed Fernando Alonso to take charge of a team on the grid in the future.
The Spaniard was praised by Hill for his quick thinking and understanding of the rules at the Australian Grand Prix.
At a late-race restart, Alonso was demoted down the order from third place after he was hit by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who would eventually take a five-place grid penalty.
The race was immediately red-flagged as various other incidents also occurred around the Spanish radio.
Alonso took to the team radio and said: “Stupid rule! How the hell you can put a red flag before?
“Maybe it’s because we don’t complete a lap, we go back to the same positions. It happened in Silverstone.”
The race was restarted behind the Safety Car, with Alonso forming up in third place once again having managed to avoid terminal damage in the crash.
Hill joked that Alonso would hold up strongly as a lawyer due to his knowledge of the sport.
“We were making a joke that he should be a lawyer. I’d get him to defend me in a murder charge!” Hill said, speaking on the F1 Nation podcast.
“It’s boring driving the car, he needs something else to do. He’s going around going, ‘Can I do the strategy as well? Give me more information.’
“He already understands the rules. You’d expect someone who’s been in Formula 1 as long as he has and had all the experiences to have learned something, but you can’t automatically assume that.”
Hill likened Alonso’s mindset to that of Michael Schumacher, a driver that shared a rivalry with the pair during his lengthy F1 career.
“He’s invested in this, he understands it, and he knows, like Michael Schumacher as well,” Hill commented.
“Michael Schumacher understood where the openings were, where the opportunities were, and he took advantage of those, and it’s the same with Fernando.
“He’s got to become a team boss eventually, because he’d be brilliant. He just understands this game.”
