Stewart: Schumacher ‘bully-boy tactics’ must stop

With FIA Race Steward Derek Warwick having already said that Michael Schumacher came close to being disqualified from Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix for dangerous driving, former triple World Champion Jackie Stewart has insisted that the German’s ‘bully-boy tactics’ must be stopped.

Mercedes driver Schumacher has come under much scrutiny for the Lap 66 move on former team-mate Rubens Barrichello, which involved the Brazilian being forced towards the Hungaroring pit wall and just managing to escape a huge accident via the pit exit.

“It is 16 years and four months since we lost a driver," Stewart, referring to the tragic death of Ayrton Senna in 1994, explained to The Daily Express. “We are never more than a millimeter away from something awful happening and for Schumacher to do what he did with Rubens Barrichello is just inviting disaster.

“For one driver to do that deliberately, knowing that the wheels could interlock and that he had nowhere to go, was shocking. It was one of the most blatant abuses of another driver that I have seen. It is a terrible example from a man who has seven world titles, bully-boy tactics."

The moment has resulted in a 10-place grid drop penalty for Schumacher at the next Grand Prix in Belgium, with the moment likely to rumble on into the Spa paddock. “The punishment was the minimum they could do," Stewart added. “It cannot go on."