For quite a few races, Aston Martin has been expressing dissatisfaction with the fact that their drivers are very strictly affected by certain decisions of the FIA judges. Alonso was penalized for potentially dangerous driving in Australia, and then in the sprint in China for hitting Carlos Sainz’s car from the side, while Lance Stroll was penalized for the incident with Daniel Ricciardo.
Meanwhile, in the sprint race in Miami, Alonso and Stroll both fell victim to Lewis Hamilton’s aggressive maneuver, but the Briton was not penalized, which once again angered Alonso, who said it happened because Hamilton was “not Spanish”. After the qualification, where he only took 15th place, the two-time champion emphasized his opinion again.
“I really feel that nationality matters. And I will talk to Mohammed about it [bin Szulajm, az FIA elnöke], with the FIA or whoever is needed. I need to know for sure that where I am from is not a problem or that there is something that could affect the decisions. And here I am not only talking about myself, but about the next generation of Spanish pilots. They must be protected.”
“I had to pull to the outside because Hamilton came on the inside corner without any control. If I had done this, I would have been punished for sure,” criticized Alonso harshly, who, of course, couldn’t be too happy about his qualifying result either.
“It was a bit of a disappointing qualification for us. 15th in Q1, 15th in Q2, so I didn’t have much pace. We changed a few settings compared to the morning, but they didn’t really work, so we’re a little less competitive than usual. I was understeer in the faster corners, oversteer in the slower corners and had no grip at all.”
“With two tenths, you can be eighth instead of 15th. We are now at the wrong end of this group, while it was the other way around in the last couple of races. It will be a tough race. Hopefully with Lance’s 11th place we can score some points. It will be very difficult for me from the 15th,” concluded the Spaniard.
We wrote about why Hamilton did not receive a penalty in this article.
