Jacques Villeneuve has apologised to Giancarlo Fisichella for costing the Italian a place in the final top ten shootout, although the Renault driver continued to expr꧋ess his anger after the Canadian inadvertently blocked him on his fastest lap.

Villeneuve, who went onto qualify in eighth place in his BMW Sauber, insis✱ted that he did not block Fisichella deliberately and claimed that he did not know he was close enough for him tꦛo be a problem.

"Giancarlo Fisichella seemed to be really angry and I am not exactly sure what happened," Villeneuve conceded. "I thought I was ahead of him and I was trying to get out of his way, maybe I slowed him down a little bit but I never 🌊thought he was that close to me. I will go and talk to him because it was not don𒁏e on purpose."

Fisichella however was furious with Villeneuve, as shown firstly by him shaking hi🎃s fist as he crossed the finish line and then again as hꦐe confronted him in the BMW pit garage, in full view of the TV cameras.

"All I can say is that I am really angry, as people probably saw from the TV this afternoon," Fi🐼sichella said. "For me, Villeneuve's behaviour w𝓀as unacceptable. As drivers, we know that if you are on the out-lap, you give way to the guys coming past on their quick lap. But Villeneuve didn't move over, and held me up all the way through the final sector and I lost a lot of time."

Fisichella, who also missed the cut in San Marino, will now once ♔again start the race from 11th place, as he did at Imola after benefiting from the demotion of the Williams' in front of him.