Lewis Hamilton, current championship leading driver, defended his contender – Ferrari’s driver Sebastian Vettel – for title who ran into a crash at French Grand Prix last Sunday.
Vettel crashed into Mercedes driver Valterri Bottas forcing him to pit. The collision cost the German his lead while finishing fifth.
“I don’t feel like Sebastian needs criticising,” Hamilton said.
“He is a four-time world champion and has won more than most. Everyone jumps at one single fault from any of us.”
Hamilton managed to finish first with 14 points lead over the Vettel. Misjudgment has costed the German title contender second time in this season. Earlier, a hasty over take at Azerbaijan Grand Prix pulled him down two positions to finish fourth instead of second.
Hamilton, who defended his contender from criticism, has also been critical of lenient five second penalty to Vettel.
“You shouldn’t really be able to finish ahead of him if you took him out of the race,” Hamilton said on Sunday.
But on Austrian’s Grand Prix media day Hamilton added: “People jump on the bandwagon and love to talk negative about someone.
“It is a strange scenario when a split-second decision can have a result as it did, yet a penalty of five seconds doesn’t appear to be significant enough.
“But that is the rules and it is a penalty nonetheless and he served it and moved on.
“It is a penalty already when you get hit at Turn One and you have to trundle around and do a pit stop and work your way from the back. The stewards have a difficult job. It is done and dusted and we move forwards and hope there are no more moving forwards.”
Ricciardo ‘still in the fight’
Daniel Ricciardo is the third potential contender behind Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.
Ricciardo despite being 49 points behind Hamilton insisted to fight for the title as Red Bull prepares to fight at their own track in Speilberg.
The Australian said. “For sure, we’re still a little bit a long way from it, from a points perspective. But I feel we’re more in it than we have been the years I’ve had with the team.
“I feel on performance alone, we’re closer than we ever have been.
“If we got a win and the top guys had a bad weekend all of a sudden, we’re the talk of the town again. It’s still too early to count us out.”
