Daniel Ricciardo says his Monaco clash with Lewis Hamilton in 2016 was no different to Sebastian Vettel’s incident during the Canadian GP.
The German was penalised five seconds for an unsafe re-entry to the track after running wide at Turn 4 and pushing the Briton against the wall during Sunday’s race.
That ultimately proved crucial to the race result as Hamilton would inherit his fifth win of 2019 as Vettel dropped to second.
“If he pulls a little further to the left, he’ll spin. When he brakes on the grass, he’ll spin too. There was not much room for Lewis but still enough,” the Aussie claimed.
“I had an identical situation with Lewis in 2016 Monte Carlo. He had to go through the emergency exit and almost pushed me into the wall on his return.
“With me, it was tighter than now with him but he didn’t get a penalty. That was a good thing because it was hard racing.”
The reaction has been mostly supportive of Vettel, with former drivers voicing their disappointment at the stewards.
Speaking on Sky Sports, 2009 world champion Jenson Button offered his insight.
“It’s really sad. It’s always disappointing when there’s a proper fight on between two greats, two multiple world champions and the stewards come in and take that away from us as viewers, so it’s a shame,” he said.
“For me, it’s a racing incident. Yeah, Seb made a mistake, but you’ve got to realise he’s doing over 100mph here. You can’t just stop the car and stay off the circuit.
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“He’s come onto the track with the rear moving around. It doesn’t deserve a penalty for me personally, but it’s a regulation and they’ve decided to punish it.
“On a circuit like this – it’s so narrow, it’s a street circuit, the cars are massive and you just end up over that part of the track, you don’t choose to be there. Seb doesn’t want to crash into Lewis either.
“Both of them drove a really great race, they really did, and it just leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth.”