Ryan Briscoe has demonstrated how drivers should handle situations where they are subject to some measure of scorn/ridicule/or other form of enmity following an accident caused largely by their own error.  Many of you may recall either witnessing or hearing reports of  another popular driver being peeved at Ryan's lack of traction upon exiting his pits - resulting in a collision that took them both out of the closing stages of their most important races of the year (the Indy 500). 

Here's pretty much how it goes:

1.  Stay in your car until the initial heat blows over.  If another racer is exhibiting threatening behavior, ... say, marching down pit lane towards your pit with fire in his/her eyes, stay in the cockpit and make sure your tire changers and fuel men are between your car and said "fire-in-the-eyes" marching driver;

2.  Be handsome, good humored, and engaging.  People rarely hold a grudge against disarmingly handsome/beautiful drivers who readily engage the press.  The good humor thing helps too, but only as a supplement to the disarmingly handsome thing.  Briscoe's laughing yet mildly self-deprecating statements during the Indy 500's Victory Banquet were PERFECT.  A foreign accent helps in this regard, particularly a British, Aussie, or New Zealander accent.  If not a native of one of these countries, you may want to quickly brush-up on such an accent and employ it liberally.

3.  Pay NO attention to the stone cold faces and lack of supportive comments regarding your freshman year with the top team in the series when asked by interviewers about just how frustrated they may be with your performance to-date.  Just keep your chin up and refer to "2." above.

4.  WIN the next race on the schedule.  Yes, Ryan won the next race on the IndyCar schedule (Milwaukee).   A mile long track with 28 open-wheel cars racing around it for a couple of hours ...  A race where nearly every other driver had a shunt of one form or another, he stayed clean and finished first.

Simple strategy, perfectly executed.

There's probably a best-selling business book in there somewhere.