Jackie Stewart has blamed inexperience for Lewis Hamilton's pit-lane gaffe in Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix, claiming that, for all his front-running expertise, the Briton still has learning to do.
Hamilton eliminated himself and title rival Kimi Raikkonen after ploughing into the rear of the Finn's Ferrari while waiting for the red light at the end of the pit-lane to go out, and picked up a ten-place grid penalty for the French Grand Prix as a result. The Briton also lost the lead of the world championship to the man he avoided hitting in the same incident, BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica.
"It comes down to inexperience," triple champion Stewart told Britain's
Daily Mail newspaper, "It could only be expected - he has only been in Formula One for 15 months."
The Scot also recalled other Hamilton errors, such as crashing in China with the 2007 world title in his grasp, to back up his point, but also suggested that the Mclaren team could have played a bigger role in avoiding the situation.
"In Canada, it was all about the failure of mind-management," he continued, "I understand that the team told him, over the radio, that the red light was on and that the pit-lane closed on exit. [But,] if you are in the lead, the pace car comes out and you need to go into the pits, all sorts of things go though your head.
"Inexperience means you don't have the focus, the single-minded, clear-headed thought process when something like that happens. I don't know precisely what they told him over the headset [but], given his lack of experience, they should have talked him up the pit-lane. Not just 'the red light's on', but 'slow down, slow down, Kimi has stopped'....
"McLaren are used to having experienced drivers, so maybe they assumed more of Lewis than was fair. The fact he had been passed in the pits by Kimi and Robert Kubica might have taken his concentration away. He will make mistakes. And this one cost him the Grand Prix of Canada. I believe the race was his. His pace was such - even by the time his and Kimi's race ended - he had established a useful lead."
While stopping short of the sort of criticism levelled at Jenson Button following his elevation from F3 to F1 at the turn of the century, Stewart did suggest that Hamilton has a long way to go before becoming the finished article.
"He presents himself as so mature, but it's impossible to become Einstein overnight," he explained, "You simply can't go straight from kindergarten to university. When he looks back in four or five years, he will question himself about what sort of person and driver he was in 2007 and 2008."
