Villeneuve Makes Interesting Claim About Raikkonen Penalty

The aftermath of the British GP was vivid to say the least with Mercedes making accusations at Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari’s tactics and the Italian team hitting back. The explosive Jacques Villeneuve did not want to be left out of the action.

The former champion is a quoted man in media outlets these days with several strong interviews expressing his opinions on various races and drivers. But his most recent one should take the cake.

“They decided that it’s Lewis, we’re in the UK, he’s fighting for the championship, that’s worth 10 seconds”, he said regarding the penalty dished out to Raikkonen for clashing with the Mercedes driver.

“I don’t understand why it’s 10 seconds, and another time it’s five, sometimes it’s nothing. That’s what’s wrong. It’s racing. I don’t like it when there are racing penalties, it should be for dirty driving, which is a different thing, or stupid driving.”

“If it had been Bottas, it would have been five seconds, that’s the thing”, he stated, clearly unimpressed with the FIA’s way of handling things.

He was not done though. The Canadian went on to highlight the incident in Austria which was overlooked by the stewards, lending credence to his point of the FIA being hypocritical.

“Sometimes you see things like Verstappen in Austria, when he touched Kimi. Why wasn’t that a penalty? Just because Kimi didn’t go off? If Kimi had gone off, then it would have been a penalty?”, he asked.

“That’s what’s wrong, it’s the action that matters, not what happens after the action, ultimately”, added Villeneuve.

He also seemed to take a dig at Hamilton, suggesting that he need not have cribbed at the end of the race. “Without them crashing into each other he would have been running third the whole race, not having people moving out of the way to let him by, he would destroyed his tyres”, said Villeneuve.

“That ended up working out, because he was the later one to pit, so he was the one who at the end had tyres that were still OK compared to Bottas.”

“He finished second after a crappy start, so he should be happy with that, because he wasn’t going to win this race. Nothing to complain about.”