Alonso after confusion of penalties: “I feel sorry for the fans”

It was already night when the news came that the ten-second penalty had been lifted. “I feel sorry for the fans,” said the Aston Martin driver, explaining that the FIA ​​had given a sad picture. You should just use common sense again in the future. “I think it’s more of a sad performance for the FIA ​​than a disappointment for us,” said the Spaniard at a time when he had to assume he had finished fourth. The penalty transfer against the two-time world champion was pronounced because his pit crew had allegedly started working on the car too early when completing an initial time penalty. The question was whether the jack had touched the rear of the car and whether this counted as working on the car. After Aston Martin requested a reconsideration of the case, the race stewards reversed their decision once again.

Chaos and sometimes heavy criticism

The FIA ​​received criticism primarily for when the second penalty was pronounced – more than 30 laps after the incident in question. “You can’t give a penalty 35 laps after the pit stop. They had enough time,” said Alonso. If he had known about the penalty he could have tried to put an 11 second lead over Mercedes man George Russell. But he didn’t even know that there was an investigation at all.

After that, according to the tenor of fans and professional observers, the stewards should have communicated before the award ceremony that a penalty was imminent. A few more minutes of waiting might have saved Alonso some trouble and instead gave Russell a chance to celebrate on the podium with winner Sergio Perez and his Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen. However, it was Russell and not Alonso who subsequently attended the top three drivers’ press conference. From today’s point of view it’s all the more wrong again, one could object.

Tough issue of penalties and timings

The problem of penalties and their timing is a well-known problem in all of motorsport, and is somewhat tricky and not easy to solve. It is obvious that the assessment of a case in the middle of a race, where new scenes constantly have to be assessed, takes a certain amount of time. When it is “too long” is difficult to measure. It is appropriate and justified that the FIA ​​​​commissioners reopened the case after intervention by Aston Martin and admitted new evidence. But even that happened only after hearing the team protagonists and careful consideration.

In the end, Alonso didn’t want to spoil the evening anyway. “For me, the most important thing was that the car was so strong because we were second fastest,” said the Asturian. “We were well ahead of Ferrari and controlled the Mercedes,” he added. This is “very good news”. Red Bull is “maybe a little out of reach at the moment, but we’re right behind”.