Villeneuve: Ocon is an 'embarrassment'

Jacques Villeneuve has called Esteban Ocon an “embarrassment” for the Turn 1 incident with Max Verstappen at Interlagos on Sunday.

The Frenchman was trying to un-lap himself and went round the outside of race leader Max Verstappen into Turn 1.

However, the Red Bull driver had the corner, before Ocon lunged down the inside into Turn 2 and caused a collision.

WATCH: Ocon and Verstappen crash in Brazil

The pair spun round, costing Verstappen a second consecutive race win, and the Force India man received a ten-second stop-go penalty for what happened.

Villeneuve believes that it was embarrassing for the Frenchman and that he should have apologised for it immediately.

“Ocon is an embarrassment. That was ridiculous,” Villeneuve told motorsport.com.

“And the worst bit is everyone has seen what happened, and on the radio not even a ‘sorry guys, I was wrong.’ It’s good to accept you’re wrong.

“You can unlap yourself, but do it properly. You’re not allowed to put the leader at risk at all. You don’t do something that loses time for the other driver, and is taking a risk.

“Overtaking on the straight and you’re in front is fine. But that looked like it was a battle for the lead.”

The 1997 World Champion also looked back at other incidents in Ocon’s brief F1 career, and said that the Frenchman does not learn from his mistakes.

“But also it shows he has no racecraft, zero racecraft whatsoever,” the Canadian added.

“All the incidents in the last two years where maybe it’s his fault, maybe it’s not, you can kind of think that maybe he was in the wrong, because he hasn’t read the race properly.

“And he never learns, because it’s never his fault, ever.”

Villeneuve had sympathy for Verstappen, who was eventually given a public service order after pushing Ocon in the weighing area after the race.

However, the Canadian is surprised that the Red Bull man did not go one further and punch Ocon.

“I thought he [Verstappen] was very restrained in his reaction. He didn’t even punch him!” he added.

“What do we want to see? We want to emotion, we want to see these gladiators. It was good to see that. And the other one is taller than him anyway!

READ MORE: Should Verstappen have received a harsh punishment?

“Max was amazing, and his overtaking early on without DRS, aggressive, clean. It’s a different Max. It looks like after Monaco he took [Daniel] Ricciardo’s talent, or what was good in Ricciardo as well.

“You already had the Max, and he got rid of what was nasty and took what was good from Ricciardo, and has really made a step. In the last few races he’s been very impressive.”

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