Formula 1’s managing director of motorsport, Ross Brawn, has played down the furore surrounding Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton believing it showed real passion albeit, a little over the limit.
Almost a week on after the Ferrari driver deliberately hit his main championship rival in Baku and the fallout isn’t set to end anytime soon. Especially with a second investigation now being launched by the FIA on Monday.
However, commenting on that decision to potentially retrospectively punish the German, Brawn does not find another sanction necessary and is instead enjoying the positive side of the drama.
“Sebastian did something he shouldn’t have done and got penalised for it,” he said on Thursday.
“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 shouldn’t have happened; it shows the passion of the guys fighting for the world championship. That’s the passion we want to see,” Brawn added.
“Sebastian will reflect on what happened and learn from it. We want to see that passion in the future but perhaps not as raw as we saw in Baku.”
Brawn was technical director at Ferrari during Michael Schumacher’s era and is used to such scenarios with the seven-times world champion being involved in similar incidents, notably in 1994 and 1997.
When contemplating what Vettel did, he commented: “It wasn’t pre-meditated that’s for sure; it was a reaction to the huge amount of adrenalin and passion running through these guys’ systems.”
Even going forward he thinks once a final ruling has been made, the lasting effect will not be as dramatic as some claim.
“There’s huge respect between them [Vettel and Hamilton] and that hasn’t changed,” he said. “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 over 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.”