Villeneuve defended his actions in Melbourne’s Albert Park as he prepared to return to the race track for the first time since the accident when practice begins for the Malaysian Grand Prix in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning.

The Canadian insisted he was not at fault for the 180mph incident with Ralf Schumacher when his BAR hit the back of the German’s Williams BMW and was launched airborne.

Villeneuve’s car hit a safety fence and one of its wheels forced its way through a gap in the fencing before hitting marshal Graham Beveridge, who died later in hospital.

"I made an effort to be neutral in my comments to make sure I did not put the blame on anybody", said Villeneuve as he spoke for the first time about the accident today.

"The other side reacted like a bunch of babies, trying to point the finger, and I thought that was highly unacceptable where there was just a racing incident with miscomprehension."

Although insisting he did not want to lay any blame on another driver, Villeneuve clearly found Schumacher at fault.

"Ralf had problems with his front tyres and he was extremely, extremely slow", he added.

"He was braking earlier than everybody else on the race track so if that happens, and you know that that is what is happening, then do not stay in the middle of the race track.

"Stay on the left or the right and give room for someone else to react, because if you are going to brake 30 metres earlier than everybody else because you have problems there is no way anyone else can react."

Schumacher had said in the immediate aftermath of the crash that Villeneuve had 'overrated' himself as he had done in a previous incident involving the two drivers.

Villeneuve, whose father Gilles died during practice in Belgium in 1982, added that he had been stunned by the severity of the accident which left his BAR boss and friend Craig Pollock fearing the worst.

In fact, the 29-year-old emerged virtually unscathed from the smash although he later went to hospital for a check-up after complaining of a sore back.

But Villeneuve, who expressed his sorrow at the marshal’s death, believes that little can be done to prevent similar tragedies.

"Safety-wise you cannot do anything apart from not having a race or not having fans or marshals.

"It was surprising how big a crash it was. It felt big from the inside, but it looked even worse from the outside.

"I was not frightened. But normally when you crash you are spinning and you know where you are going to hit so you can prepare yourself.

"But this time once I was in the air I could not see where I was going to hit and how I was going to hit and whether I was going to be upside down with the tyres.

"When I was in the crash I was not thinking about other people watching, I was just thinking about the fact you might get very hurt.

"When you get out of the car you start thinking about everyone else. This one never felt good and afterwards when I heard the marshal had been killed it felt worse.

"Accidents like that will happen because we are both not on the road saying 'OK it’s your turn now', we are both trying to fight for the same corner of the race track.

"Maybe the drivers are becoming slightly more aggressive now and maybe that is a good thing because that is part of racing.

"But I think with mistakes now, there is much more blaming than there used to be."