Kimi Raikkonen was lucky to have beaten Felipe Massa to the 2007 World Championship, according to former champion Jacques Villeneuve, who said the Brazilian also doesn't deserve the criticism he has been getting this year.
Raikkonen took the 2007 title for Ferrari against all odds, after overcoming a 17-point gap in the final two races of the season. Villeneuve now says he believes Raikkonen's teammate Massa deserved the title more.
"If Kimi won the championship, he did it by luck, because he didn't deserve it," Villeneuve told Brazilian website TotalRace after the Canadian competed in the stock car race at Interlagos during the weekend. "Felipe deserved it a lot more. He was always more capable than Kimi and it was easy to beat him."
The 1997 World Champion added that he does not understand criticism aimed at Massa for his performances this year, the Brazilian having been overshadowed by teammate Fernando Alonso. Villeneuve reckons Massa is performing strongly at the Italian squad.
"The problem is that Alonso arrived and quickly became powerful inside Ferrari," he added. "When it happens, it creates an energy that people put inside you, in this case, in Alonso. It seems that, if the car wins, it will be with him. It creates a difficult situation for the other driver, who has a double task.
"That's what Felipe has to do. He has the speed. He is capable of driving strongly, working in the car. I don't have any doubt about that. But he needs to do even more, because it's Alonso's team, which is normal, given that he is a double World Champion. That's the logic. If your teammate is a double World Champion, it's normal that the team will focus on him.
"He [Massa] has won races and almost a championship, maybe two. He's a great driver. Right now he is driving strongly for Ferrari. I don't get people who criticize him."