25/03/2024
NEWS STORY
Fernando Alonso denies any wrongdoing after being penalised for "potentially dangerous" driving whilst battling with George Russell.
As the Mercedes driver crashed it was initially thought that he had clipped a kerb, but in the moments after the race Alonso was summoned by the stewards after it was alleged he had brake tested the Briton.
Following their investigation the stewards issued a statement in which, while admitting that there was no evidence that Alonso had brake tested the Mercedes driver, by slowing on entry to Turn 6 on the final lap his driving was "potentially dangerous" - surely a claim that could be made in relation to almost any move during a race.
The stewards - who included Johnny Herbert, which led to much talk of a conspiracy on social media - handed Alonso a 20s penalty which dropped him from sixth to eighth.
"In the closing laps, George caught me quickly," said Alonso after the investigation. "I knew that he was coming, then he was in DRS range for five or six laps, so I was just doing qualifying laps to stay ahead. I wanted to maximise my exit speed from Turn 6 to defend against him.
"That's what any racing driver would do, and I didn't feel it was dangerous," he insisted.
"It's disappointing to get a penalty for what was hard but fair racing," he added. "Still, I'm glad that George is OK. It was not nice to see his car in the middle of the track."
Referring to the rqace overall, he said: We were a little lucky with the timing of the Virtual Safety Car when Lewis retired. Then I was pretty happy sat behind Checo because I could use the DRS to pull a gap.
"I lost a lot of time when Charles came out from the pits, but those seconds we gained proved to be gold dust at the end.
"This wasn't the best weekend for us in terms of pace," he admitted, "but our race was well executed: good strategy, incredible pit-stops, great reliability. I think we probably scored more points today than our pace merited - but we'll take that."
If Alonso's tactics were indeed "potentially dangerous", what of the fact that Russell was stranded in his car, which was on its side in the middle of the track, with the driver calling repeatedly for the race to be red-flagged immediately.
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