Alonso: Hamilton will escape penalty for Turn 1 clash "because he's not Spanish"
A disappointed Fernando Alonso reckons Lewis Hamilton will escape a penalty for ‘ruining’ people’s races at Turn 1 of Miami’s Formula 1 sprint because he is not Spanish.
Alonso was caught out at the opening corner in Miami when Hamilton came diving down the inside, forcing the Spaniard wide and into his Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll, who in turn collected McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Having picked up a puncture in the incident, Alonso dropped to the back of the field and was not able to stage much of a recovery as he came home 17th.
After coming into this weekend chasing answers as to why he had been sanctioned in the China sprint for his part in a racing collision with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, he suggested that Hamilton would get away with any penalty for what happened here.
Asked about the FIA potentially taking action, Alonso told DAZN: “We'll see what they decide. I guess they won't decide anything, because he's not Spanish. But I think he ruined the race for a few people, especially Norris, who had a very fast car and he was out in that incident.”
Alonso said that, mindful of how he had been handed penalties in recent races, he did not want to take any risks in overtaking other cars once he was toward the back.
“Maybe today I didn't get penalised, but I always get penalised,” he said. “Today the same thing. I was behind Ocon, I could maybe take a risk and overtake him, but logically I don't take the risk to avoid being penalised.
“So, I tried to complete the race, which is 19 laps, and go back to the team to talk about the changes.”
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Alonso added that the sprint effectively turned into a test session for him, so he and the team could better understand tyre degradation for the main grand prix.
“We didn't have any interest in the sprint race,” he said. “We were just going to check degradation and things for tomorrow and at the end we managed it. For us it's a free practice, it's not really a race.
“Now, the important part of the race starts, the qualifying and tomorrow the 57 laps. I think we can draw a conclusion from this sprint for the parc ferme that opens now and see if we can improve the car a little bit.”
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