Fernando Alonso drove one of his best qualifiers of the season at Istanbul Park on Saturday, but still had to fear for his fifth place on the grid. The Spaniard was called out by the stewards for ignoring a double yellow flag in Q1, but after the visit they decided not to penalize him.
The pace was good for Alonso, who was at least a lot faster than teammate Esteban Ocon. While Ocon did not get further than the twelfth time, Alonso recorded the sixth time. With Lewis Hamilton having to take a ten-place grid penalty, Alonso would therefore start from fifth place, which would be his best starting position of the season.
Also read: Hamilton fastest but start GP Turkey in eleventh, Verstappen third
However, Alonso had to fear for that fifth starting place after qualifying. He was called to the mat by the stewards. They noted that the Spaniard had ignored double yellow flags at 3:03 p.m. local time, just three minutes after the start of qualifying. He would not have slowed down enough in the zone where those yellow flags were waved and had to report to the stewards. Alonso’s onboards show that these are yellow flags in the first corner, where Carlos Sainz had just spun. The Ferrari had already disappeared from view, but the yellow flags were still displayed on the light panels along the track. In addition, he was warned by his engineer on the on-board radio about those yellow flags.
The stewards ultimately ruled that Alonso had slowed down enough in the yellow flag zone and thus escaped a possible five-place grid penalty. The stewards explain that Alonso was convinced that he was not setting a really fast lap because he improved the lap by 3.5 seconds afterwards, which they judged that he had followed the rules.
Also read: Alonso critical of stewards: “Do different rules apply to some drivers”
After qualifying, before he got the news that he had to report to the stewards, Alonso was still happy with the result. “The truth is I’m very happy,” Alonso told DAZN F1. “It was probably my best Saturday of the year. With the penalty for Hamilton, we start fifth on the clean side of the grid, on the medium tyre. It was a good Saturday. We’ll see if we can finish this job on Sunday,” said the Spaniard.
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