F1 drivers have differing opinion on what transpired in Australian GP with the late incident and whether the penalty was deserved or not.
The late incident between Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Mercedes’ George Russell in F1 Australian GP has certainly triggered a widespread discussion. Even though there was no contact, the Spaniard’s tactics led to a heavy shunt for the Brit on the final lap.
The consequence wasn’t taken too much into consideration by the stewards but more what Alonso did which seemingly upset Russell’s rhythm and led to a big accident. While the Mercedes camp were fine with the penalty, it wasn’t the same at Aston Martin.
Although both the F1 team and Alonso has accepted the penalty, there will be discussions still in Japanese GP’s drivers’ briefing at length on the matter. There is certainly a mixed bag in the paddock when asked about the incident and the penalty.
While most agree that the corner’s barrier placement needs to be changed to make it more safer, the defence style of Alonso received a mixed bag of answers. Most understood the shrewdness of the Spaniard but sided with him, while some remains against.
Russell did meet Alonso at a coffee shop accidently but neither discussed about the topic. The Brit also raised questions over the delay in deploying the Virtual Safety Car – all of it which will be discussed during the F1 drivers’ briefing.
Here’s the mixed bag of answers from F1 drivers –
Thoughts two weeks on –
George Russell: “Yeah, I think it was… Obviously a bit of a strange situation that happened last week. As I said at the time, totally caught by surprise. I was actually looking at the steering wheel, making a switch change in the straight, which, you know, we all do across the lap. And when I looked up, I was in Fernando’s gearbox and it was sort of too late. And then next thing I know I’m in the wall. So I think, if it were not to have been penalised, it would have really opened the kind of worms for the rest of the season – and in junior categories – of saying, you know, are you allowed to break in a straight? Are you allowed to slow down, change gear, accelerate, do something semi-erratic? I don’t take anything personally with what happened with Fernando. And it probably had bigger consequences than it should have. But as I said, if it went unpenalised, can you just break in the middle of a straight? I don’t know. So, yeah, nothing more to say really.”
Carlos Sainz: “Nothing to add. I just think, apart from all that, I think that corner needs to be reviewed, which is already something I said in the last driver’s briefing, but it’s not the first time that after a collision, the car comes back into the track and it’s a corner that we’re doing 250 kph and it’s blind. I just don’t like the last few incidents that we’ve seen in this corner, also in other categories. It just doesn’t give me a very good feeling. It’s a great corner, don’t get me wrong. I love driving in a qualifying lap. It’s just… When it comes to racing, there’s been just too many examples of a car coming back onto a track and being very narrow there. And I just think it’s a corner that needs to be a bit reviewed.”
Penalty situation, yes or no –
Russell: “Every driver is open to change their line, brake earlier, power through the corner, do whatever. When we start braking in the middle of a straight, downshifting, accelerating, upshifting again, then braking again for a corner, I think that goes beyond the realms of adjusting your line. And as I said, I was actually looking at my steering wheel in that straight as I’ve done every single lap prior. And when I looked up a hundred metres before the corner, I realised I was right behind Fernando rather than the half a second that I was. You know, we’ve got so many duties to take care of. when we’re driving, you know, looking, going around the racetrack, changing all of the settings on the steering wheel, making sure you’re in the right engine mode, taking care of the tyres, talking to your engineer, managing the deltas on your steering wheel when it’s an in-lap, out-lap, safety car, whatever it may be.
“If you add into the mix, you’re allowed to brake in the middle of the straight to gain a tactical, or get a tactical advantage. I think that is maybe one step too far. And the same when we talk about moving down the straight to get out of the slipstream. There was lots of talks about that in the past. It’s not overly dangerous, but it has a concertina effect if everybody’s moving around. And if suddenly if you brake test somebody and there’s 10 cars behind, it probably has a greater effect by the 10th driver than it does for the first driver behind. So as I said, I don’t think what Fernando did was extraordinarily dangerous, but it will open a can of worms if it wasn’t penalised.”
Fernando Alonso: “It was clear. And I think it’s still clear. It was a little bit surprising, the penalty in Melbourne. There is nothing we can do, we have to accept it and move on and concentrate on here. But I think it will not change much on how we drive and how we approach racing. There is no obligation to drive 57 laps in the same way. Sometimes we get a slower pace, to save fuel, to save tyres, to save battery. And sometimes we go slow into corners, or into some sectors of the track, to give the DRS to the car behind because that will be a useful tool if the second car behind is at a faster pace. So, all those things are completely normal. And it was, it is and it will be forever in motorsports.
“So we had one penalty, probably a one-off, that we will never apply ever again. It was for us, we take it, we accept it, we lost two points for the team. If there was run-off……100%. If he was in Abu Dhabi with a run off area of asphalt or whatever, I think George will rejoin the track a few metres after that and will try to have a go on me on the following lap, or the following straight. And it will not be any problem. It was the hardest penalty of the season in terms of time lap, which is strange, but the fact it got penalised [was the main issue].”
Sergio Perez: “My take is it [the penalty] was definitely a bit too much over the limit. I’d say a bit unnecessary to do so. But my biggest fear is that we might see this incident again this weekend or next weekend and probably nothing will happen. That’s my biggest fear because we’ve been struggling a lot to keep the consistency within the penalties. For example in Jeddah there was a block of Bottas in Q1 at 300 km/h with two cars – Bearman and Albon. No penalty. I block Hulkenberg, he lost half a tenth – he goes faster on the lap after, and I get three places. So I think the biggest talking point should be consistency. If incidents like this are going to be penalised, they have to be penalised every single weekend.
“Because as a driver, it hurts a lot when you work your ass off and then you see this inconsistency. I think we all know what’s acceptable, what’s within the limits. I mean, knowing the drivers, especially like Fernando, he always does these sort of tricks, let’s put it that way, always within the limits. I think Fernando is a very aggressive driver. But always within the limits. I’ve had great fights with him. He is one of the drivers I trust the most out there. I have to say that it was a bit too much to the limit or probably over the limit but, like I say, you know, we might see this incident again in two weeks’, or three weeks’ time, and nothing will happen.”
Lando Norris: “It shouldn’t be a penalty. Now, no. It was clear, now it’s not. Just my opinion. Maybe all the drivers have different opinions. What Fernando did was odd, like, extreme, but I don’t think it’s even close to being regarded as a brake test. Did he brake and downshift, I don’t know exact things of it but should it be a penalty in any way? No. George, in my opinion, should have seen it coming. I don’t want to comment too much on it, but George had time to see what was going on. I am sure it is tougher being in the situations, that is why I don’t like commenting on it. That is a kind of thing that shouldn’t be a penalty. Technically he is in front like Max and Hamilton, that’s a brake test, this was not a brake test. This was just trying to play smart, Fernando being Fernando. And kind of being caught out by it. But it was not aggressive. It was not, like, one metre in front of a car, stopping.
“It was, like, 100 metres ahead. And slowed out. And just the approaching speed caught George off. But nowhere near should that be a penalty, I would say. If George was a lot closer, and then suddenly in the middle of a straight Fernando lifts off, and George has to suddenly swerve or whatever, then I guess it’s a bit more of a question. But George didn’t have to do anything but brake five metres earlier. And there would have been a different outcome. That’s also down to George. When you’re a driver, you have to react to everything around you and it’s worse going into Turn 1 at the start of a race. You have no idea when people are going to brake, but you have to react as soon as they brake, you brake. That’s the worse case I would say then, that didn’t happened here but the outcome of it was severe here than what happens in Turn 1.”
Charles Leclerc: “I mean, my view is that it’s something that we do as drivers. However, not to that extent. And it was too much. I mean, what Fernando did in Australia was too much, and it had to be penalised. However, I believe it is something that we need to look in terms of the penalty that we are giving, we have been working with time penalty for a long time which I think it is a bit wrong because you are a bit of a victim of your own luck, in a way that if you have got a safety car with two laps to go which could have been the case in that scenario, then you go from fifth to last. If you are in a position like Fernando was, you only lose two places. So, I think there is something to look into and especially in the future to try and improve. I have always thought the position of penalty is more fair because whatever the race situation, you are penalised like you are intended to be penalised, however with time penalties, there can be inconsistencies like depending on race situation.”
Lewis Hamilton: “Honestly, I saw only one footage, so it is not a topic for me. The stewards obviously found something to penalise and they have been asked to be strict this year, so that’s that. I don’t understand the situation, I tried to put myself in the position and I can’t understand it.”
Nico Hulkenberg: “My personal view and when I saw it all, I wasn’t very impressed with Fernando’s tactics there, to be honest, because Melbourne, after all, is kind of a street circuit. It’s quite narrow there. We approached that corner with 260, 270 km/h. It’s a blind exit. And, you know, if for whatever reason, the flag system or someone is late and one of us would have T-boned George, I think, the outcome and the way he feels might have been also quite different. So I think, whilst that tactic is quite a common one in Formula 1, in that particular corner with that speed, with a blind exit, I think it’s the wrong corner to do it and produced quite a dangerous situation.
“Like I said, it is the wrong speed range, the wrong corner and I think also the shift or the change, this ratio there is a quite a big delta obviously. It is easy to overreact and lose the rear of the car like it happened to George. What I also didn’t understand that right after the incident, he talked on the radio about throttle issues or throttle stuck or not stuck but later on, he doesn’t talk about that anymore, he just talks about the standard procedure and tactic. So that doesn’t align and he seems to have changed his opinion there. Like I said, I wasn’t very impressed with that personally.”
Kevin Magnussen: “I think there’s been some harsh penalties this year. So, from the looks of it… They’re tightening up. They’re making harsher penalties. I was lifting at places where normally you’ll be flat in Jeddah but we didn’t have a crash behind. I don’t feel like…personally I feel like it was a pretty harsh penalty. I was not in the car, neither Russell nor Alonso’s, but it didn’t look to me that it was solely Alonso’s fault. But I think it’s, you know… It’s just important to have, as we always say, consistency. So we can anticipate, so we can drive to the limit of the rules and not over it.
“But yes, it seems to be a little harsher this year. Well, I think that incident is a pretty unique one. It’s not one that I’ve seen before where a driver breaks early and the guy behind crashes. You know, that’s not something I’ve seen every day. So it is a new situation. And if they had given Alonso a reprimand, I wouldn’t have thought that was out of order. But they gave him a drive-through and a big penalty. So I was a little bit surprised to see that. But it is what it is.”
Daniel Ricciardo: “With the Fernando thing, it’s a strange one. The consequence was big. Obviously, George had a massive crash because of… Sorry, a little bit of his defence strategy. So from that, you’re like, okay, that was bad. But then again, if George hadn’t crashed, then maybe nothing would have happened. So it’s… Yeah. I’ll be honest. I haven’t seen the data, and I don’t know if he just lifted early or what. But if he was to kind of suddenly break in a straight line, then that’s… Yeah, I’m not… Definitely not condoning that. I think if it’s just that he lifted off a bit earlier and tried to just distract George a little bit, then that’s obviously one that’s maybe, you’re going to have probably 50-50 for and against.
“But if it’s like a break in a straight line, then yeah, for sure, that’s not… That’s not something I would advise anyone to be doing. Did he break or was it just a lift? I have never seen that before, that’s why I am probably…I don’t know how I feel about it because it is something that is not common. Now that he’s done it, I can understand kind of why he did it because it is something we don’t do or practice, maybe the execution wasn’t so good. I don’t really have an answer, I don’t know how I feel. I think because of the consequence you understand the penalty. I get that, it is a tough one, put it this way, ‘are any of us going to do it this weekend? I think the answer is no’, so it is probably something we don’t encounter again but yeah, it is interesting. That’s Fernando, he’s crafty and so it is all good.”
Zhou Guanyu: “I think it is quite harsh, I don’t know what others think but for me it was quite harsh because obviously he didn’t break-test anyone in the exit corner. I think he had to be quite to the right to be taking a corner differently but of course when you have a car behind and catch that dirty air especially a corner like that, it is quite easy to lose the car when you go maximum in the last lap. I don’t have much judgement but if I get that sort of a penalty, I’ll think it to be a little bit unfair for the driver.”
Valtteri Bottas: “I was quite surprised about the penalty to be honest, yes, it’s on the limit, it was clear what he did, that he tried to kind of kill the momentum of George for the back straight. If George had not ended up in the wall or going off the track, probably then there would have not been a penalty, it made it look quite dramatic. I still feel like the car ahead should always be allowed to choose the speed and the line, but it’s a fine line, whatever you can do.
“So I was quite surprised about the penalty, actually. It’s a tough one, like I said, it’s impossible to judge, every situation is different, but with Fernando’s case, I still feel like it. It shouldn’t be that harsh penalty, maybe reprimand or black and black and white flag or something, but that kind of penalty maybe I feel like it’s a bit harsh because I think in the future then these people are more afraid to try and play a bit along those lines, you know?”
Oscar Piastri: “Yes, it was obviously quite different to how we’d taken the corner beforehand. I think giving a penalty for it, potentially creates a very, very tricky precedent for everybody. Giving a car a penalty for no contact and I mean, quite frankly, it wasn’t a crash out of avoidance. I can understand that if George was trying to avoid Fernando and had to swerve off the track, then yes, understandable. But giving someone a penalty for causing dirty air, I mean, I’m sure a lot of qualifying sessions would go very differently if we started doing that.
“I was a bit surprised by the penalty. It would be interesting to know the thoughts, I’m sure there’ll be a lot of discussion about it in the driver’s briefing. So, yeah, that’s where I’ll leave it.” It is tricky, where do you draw the line, consistently draw a line on that, I really don’t know. I think the other interesting thing is what would have happened if George didn’t crash, if went into the corner like normal, he would have taken pretty keen eye to have spot that. George brought it up himself but it is an interesting situation.”
Speak to Alonso –
Russell: “Yeah, I mean, we actually saw each other back home, just coincidentally bumped into each other in a coffee shop…it’s nothing personal. When the helmet’s on, we’re all fighters and competing. And when the helmet’s off, you have respect for one another. So, of course, a lot of emotions in the moment. But, you know, we both moved forward from this. And no, we didn’t discuss. He didn’t get my coffee, though, that was probably the least that could have happened. But, no, it’s history now.”
Post-accident scenes –
Russell: “I mean, it was an incredibly uncomfortable position to be in, you know, your… on a blind bend, 250 kilometres an hour, right on the racing line with the car half upside down, you know, waiting for disaster to happen. You know, fortunately I had a 10-second gap behind me and I think it was 10 or 12 seconds before the Safety Car came out. But in the space of 10 seconds, you can have five, six, seven cars if that was on lap one of the race and probably been hit numerous times, even with the yellow flag.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve seen close incidents before where a car comes back, Carlos in ‘22 in Japan. I think we need to find a way that if a car is in a danger zone, automated, you know, VSC straight away, you know, within, you know, half a second or so because those seconds count. And, you know, lives are at risk. We’ve seen it, you know, spar numerous times in the past, cars, aquaplaning. Yeah, I think it’s time with the technology that we have to make steps in this area.
Bottas: “We have seen this year a couple of times this year, there’s a bit of a delay. There was one incident in Jeddah also, there was quite a bit delay on the yellow flag and stuff, so I think that is going to be a talking point.”
Here’s F1 Japanese GP details
Here’s F1 drivers on lower chances of scoring
Here’s Aston Martin on no appeal
Here’s George Russell, Toto Wolff on no red flag
Here’s Fernando Alonso on penalty call plus explaining his side
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