'Hit and run' costs Jacques.

An incident during his first pit-stop, when he accidentally ran over his refueller, was all part and parcel of a tough British Grand Prix for Jacques Villeneuve as the former world champion battled to a 14th place finish at Silverstone.

The incident cost Villeneuve valuable time on track and left him stuck in traffic and while that led to a momentous battle in the closing stages of the race with Nick Heidfeld, David Coulthard and Felipe Massa, it also prevented him fighting for a possible finish inside the top ten.

Jacques Villeneuve - Sauber-Petronas C24
Jacques Villeneuve - Sauber-Petronas C24
© Crash Dot Net Ltd

An incident during his first pit-stop, when he accidentally ran over his refueller, was all part and parcel of a tough British Grand Prix for Jacques Villeneuve as the former world champion battled to a 14th place finish at Silverstone.

The incident cost Villeneuve valuable time on track and left him stuck in traffic and while that led to a momentous battle in the closing stages of the race with Nick Heidfeld, David Coulthard and Felipe Massa, it also prevented him fighting for a possible finish inside the top ten.

"Unfortunately I screwed up my first pit stop," he said. "I was looking at the lollipop, but then I got distracted by what was happening in the Red Bull pit and when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye I mistakenly thought it was my lollipop signal to go and moved too soon. My apologies to our refueller Silvan Ruegg, whose foot I hit. Fortunately he is okay.

"That incident cost me some time and because of that I got stuck in some traffic and had a pretty cut and thrust race all the way to the finish with Heidfeld and the Red Bull cars. My car was hard to drive today, so it was a tough race."

Team-mate Felipe Massa avoided some of the excitements of Villeneuve's race on his way to tenth, although his race wasn't without problems after a gearbox problem cost him valuable time at the start and left him to battle his way back up the order.

"At the start I had a problem with the clutch and was slow away," the Brazilian explained. "I made up the places I'd lost to the Jordans, but then I got stuck in traffic and lost a lot of time. Despite that my strategy was the right one, and when I was alone on the track the car was very good and very consistent. If I'd been able to start higher I could have taken points for sure. It was a shame that I couldn't score, but I was very happy with my race."

While his team failed to score any points, team boss Peter Sauber wasn't too disheartened - admitting it was always going to be tough on a day when only one car was forced to retire and the top teams ran without major problems.

"We did not score any points today, but that was not really possible anyway given the performance of the top teams," he said. "Jacques might have been in contention but spoiled his first pit stop and fell some way back, while Felipe's strong performance enabled him to move up from 16th on the grid to tenth, overtaking both Williams cars and the Red Bulls."

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