Max Verstappen and Kevin Magnussen may feel they've have had more than their fair share of critical comments from fellow drivers but these reactions are mild compared to the disgraceful treatment of Riccardo Patrese in the days preceding the United States Grand Prix 40 years ago.
Patrese, coming to the end of his second F1 season, was the victim of nothing less than a witch hunt as five drivers threatened not to take part in the penultimate round of the championship at Watkins Glen if Patrese was allowed to race. Criticism, founded on a few questionable incidents earlier in the season, hardened emotionally and dramatically thanks to Patrese's alleged part in the multi-car collision that led to the death of Ronnie Peterson at Monza.
Despite Patrese's claim that he had been clear of Peterson's Lotus and the cars around it, the absence of immediate and clearly defined photographic evidence accelerated the call by James Hunt (whose McLaren had been alongside Peterson), Mario Andretti (Peterson's team-mate at Lotus), Niki Lauda, Emerson Fittipaldi and Jody Scheckter to teach Patrese a lesson and have him banned from the next race in North America. With no comment either way from the grossly ineffective CSI (motor sport's governing body at the time), these five powerful voices held sway over any plea from a 24-year-old comparative novice with a renegade reputation.
Patrese was actually the victim of circumstances that stretched further back than that shocking first-lap incident at Monza. He had started 1978 on a high by leading the South African Grand Prix and looking like he would win it until his engine blew 14 laps from the finish. This was only the second race for the fledgling Arrows team; a remarkable performance in many ways. But too remarkable for some.
Arrows had been founded by former employees of Shadow, Patrese having also left the American team to join this new venture. When a civil court supported a claim that the Arrows was a blatant copy of the Shadow, Arrows had no alternative but to produce a new car in great haste. When the result was nowhere near as competitive as the original, Patrese's increasingly desperate urge to continue the South African promise led to drives that were over the limit.
By the time the season had reached Monza in September, Patrese was in the bad books of the popular Peterson, among others. But he saw that as no reason to ignore a golden opportunity when an inexperienced local official started the Italian Grand Prix while Patrese and others in the mid field were still rolling onto the grid. Flooring the throttle, Patrese had passed several cars by the time all hell broke loose as the accelerating field piled into a bottleneck at the point where Monza's disused banking peeled away from the main straight. Patrese's Arrows may have been untouched, but he was a marked man.
Alarmed by the mounting hostility created by the kangaroo court, Patrese sought out a local judge in Watkins Glen and received full legal backing against this restraint of trade. As a new team, however, Arrows felt the need to play the political long game and Patrese's entry was quietly withdrawn. A week later, he finished a fine fourth in Montreal. No more was said. But the damage had been done.
As is the way in Italian law, a court case examining the Monza crash dragged on for four years. At the end of a long and difficult trial, Patrese was totally exonerated of all blame, particularly when an overhead photograph came to light, showing the Arrows to be clear of Hunt and Peterson moments before the collision.
Hunt would never apologise, taking any opportunity to criticise Patrese during the shy Italian's distinguished and respected career that would bring six wins during 256 Grand Prix and runner-up in the 1992 championship. Lauda didn't say much but Scheckter, Fittipaldi and Andretti would express their regrets, Mario later adding that the Watkins Glen denunciation remains the most shameful episode in his many years of motor racing.
In an interview in 1982 with my colleague, the late Alan Henry, Patrese reflected: "What the drivers did - and the way they did it - was completely wrong. I was young and wanted to stay up at the front at any cost. I had tried to keep an uncompetitive car going faster than it was really capable of going. I drove over the limit. I realise that now. And that's what attracted all the criticism. I have learned a lot from that experience."
Out of bad, sometimes comes good.