Alonso, Ricciardo and Perez air their views on continued Baku fallout
Wednesday 12 July 2017 17:24, UK
Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton's F1 rivals believe the FIA was right not to issue a further penalty against the Ferrari driver over the incidents in Baku and called on the sport to 'move on'.
The fallout from the clash between the two championship protagonists continues to dominate F1's news agenda, with the pair's appearance in Thursday's press conference the focus of media day at the Austrian GP.
Hamilton accepts Vettel apology
But while wider opinion has been split about whether a subsequent FIA investigation into Vettel's actions should have resulted in a more severe second penalty for the Ferrari driver, leading rival drivers reckon the matter should be put to bed.
"It's normal when you are fighting for the world championship, if the first two guys have an incident or any contact it will be big repercussions because there's a lot of attention on them," said McLaren's Fernando Alonso.
"It's difficult to talk on the outside. We didn't hear the explanations, we didn't see the data, so [I'm] completely supportive of the FIA and the decisions they take.
"Now it's time to move on. I heard they [Vettel and Hamilton] moved on already and are already concentrating on Austria, so all the rest of us should do the same."
Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo agreed the FIA had taken sufficient action against Vettel after handing him an in-race stop-and-go penalty, a sanction which resulted in a net time loss of around 30 seconds.
The Australian, who was team-mate to Vettel in 2014, believes the German shows admirable desire to win in F1, but the Baku incident was another example of his sometimes "reactive" nature.
"I wouldn't say out of character," he said when asked about Vettel's actions.
"He's shown in the past he's a very competitive personality. You hear it on the radio, sometimes he says what he thinks, probably before he thinks and that move was more or less the same.
"In the heat of the moment he just did it and he reacted very, very quickly and then he probably realised 'ah, maybe I should not have done that'.
"I just think it's part of his competitive personality, I don't dislike this about him. Part of me admires the passion he has to win, but we know he can be quite reactive. I don't have a problem with it, the penalty was justified."
Force India's Sergio Perez was the car directly behind Hamilton and Vettel at the time of their two quick-fire clashes and said: "We need to move on. I don't think it's fair to penalise a driver when you've already penalised him on track."
Meanwhile, with Hamilton telling the media on Thursday that he had accepted an apology via text from Vettel earlier this week, Ricciardo reckons there will be no lasting animosity between the previously cordial title chasers.
"For sure it was not a common incident what happened in Baku, but still I don't think it was enough to have a feud with a guy," added Ricciardo. "If he did it to me, for sure I'd be p*****, but as soon as the race was done I'd be okay.
"So I understand how they made up. For the fans I'm sure it will stay interesting, but I don't sense any animosity. So I'm sure it will stay fine."
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