Fernando Alonso slid from sixth to eighth position after receiving a 20-second time penalty following the Australian Grand Prix. The Stewards took this stringent judgment after learning that Alonso had approached turn 6 in a manner that perhaps caused Russell (who was chasing Alonso), to crash. Following this, the Spaniard wrote a lengthy post on Twitter (now X), where he mentioned that the decision had surprised him a bit. This is because Alonso believes that without gravel on that corner, he wouldn’t have ever been investigated. Amid all of this, commentator Marc Surer has come up to defend the Aston Martin driver’s reckless driving by citing Lewis Hamilton’s example.
Following the race, F1 fans cast their votes on the Formula1.de YouTube channel regarding whether Alonso had raced unfairly. Although 30% of respondents said ‘yes’,” Surer considered himself to be somewhere in the middle.
The 72-year-old said, “We also saw Hamilton, who is considered a fair driver. When he fought with Rosberg, how they drove into each other’s cars. So, there are no nice world champions.”
However, Surer made sure to state that although Alonso’s actions were wrong, they were not uncommon. Because of this, the pundit thinks Alonso’s penalty was justified. Subsequently, Surer emphasized the correct interpretation of the stewards’ decision.
According to him, the officials clarified that there was no reason to believe that Alonso had any malicious intent. However, he drove recklessly and apparently for no reason, which violated the regulations.
As Surer concluded, he once more pointed out that Alonso made a mistake in judgment. As per the commentator, the collision might have been avoided if Alonso had applied the brakes 50 meters later and then accelerated. He said, “That was a dangerous situation. I think He wanted to brake earlier and exaggerated and misjudged. ”
How did Fernando Alonso react to his penalty at the Australian GP?
In F1, a driver rarely faces penalties for a crash that occurs behind them. However, this happened at the Australian Grand Prix when Fernando Alonso received a 20-second time penalty after Russell crashed behind him (due to his erratic maneuver) on the penultimate lap. Following this unexpected punishment, Alonso vented his discontentment on social media.
Double points for the team and a better race pace than the rest of the weekend allowed us to cross the finish line in 6th and 7th place. A bit surprised by a penalty at the end of the race regarding how we should approach the corners or how we should drive the race cars. At no… pic.twitter.com/WBdr7MPGFr
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) March 24, 2024
Alonso wrote, “A bit surprised by a penalty at the end of the race regarding how we should approach the corners or how we should drive the race cars. At no point do we want to do anything wrong at these speeds.” Subsequently, the two-time champion defended his actions with some past examples to support his argument too.
Alonso said that in his 20 years as an F1 driver, he has had some incredible duels. While mentioning some of them, he noted the races in Imola in 2005–2006 and Brazil in 2023, where drivers changed their lines and reduced their entrance speeds to have strong turn exits. According to Alonso, these moves are not unjustified but are an aspect of the art of motorsport.
Later, he even defended his dangerous braking on Turn 6 by explaining that drivers don’t drive at 100% every lap to save fuel, tires, and brakes. In summary, the Spaniard finds it surprising that he got punished for the action.
Previously, after the post-race investigation, which included the study of telemetry data, replays stewards noted that Telemetry from Alonso’s car indicated that his car lifted slightly more than 100 m earlier than he ever had to go into turn 6.’
