Fernando Alonso suffered a collision in the first corner in Miami in the sprint race Formula 1when Lewis Hamilton dived inside, forcing the Spaniard to crash into Lance Stroll, who in turn crashed into McLaren’s Lando Norris. Asked if he expected a punishment for Hamilton, Alonso was emphatic and said that the Briton would not be penalized, as he is not Spanish.
Alonso was punished in the previous GP, in China, precisely for colliding with Carlos Sainz in the sprint. But the Aston Martin driver does not expect the race management to adopt the same stance.
“We’ll see what they decide. I think they won’t decide anything, because he’s not Spanish. But I think he ruined the race for some people, especially for Norris, who had a very fast car and was left out in that incident. “, declared Alonso in an interview with DAZN.
Alonso said that, aware of the penalties he had received in recent races, he did not want to take any risks by overtaking other cars when he was at the back.
“Maybe today I wasn’t penalized, but I’m always penalized,” he said. “Today was the same thing. I was behind Ocon, maybe I could take a risk and overtake him, but, logically, I don’t take the risk to avoid being penalized. So, I tried to complete the race, which has 19 laps, and get back to the team to talk about the changes.”, confessed the pilot.
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Alonso added that the sprint effectively turned into a testing session for him so that he and the team could better understand tire degradation for the main race.
“We didn’t have any interest in the sprint. We just wanted to check the degradation and other things for tomorrow and in the end we did it. For us it’s free practice, it’s not really a race.”
“Now, the important part of the race begins, qualifying and, tomorrow, the 57 laps. I think we can conclude this sprint to the parc fermé that starts now and see if we can improve the car a little.”, concluded Alonso.
