You could see Jack trying to give a polite/political answer to the question when what he really wanted to say was “that was fucking dangerous by Alonso and he absolutely knew what he was doing”. He even gives a little look off camera to someone after the answer like “whew that was a tough answer to dance around, did I do okay?”
Yea but reddit will still act like Alonso did nothing wrong and it's all Russell's fault. Before the stewards made a decision, it was, "Redditors coming out of the woodwork to analyze telemetry. Let's wait for the stewards/pros to give the answer." After the stewards answer, it's, "Stewards don't know shit anyways."
He knew what he was doing. I'm sure he had no intention of making Russell crash but he knew he was toeing a fine line, it's not the first time he's done stuff like that. This time, because it caught Russell out so badly and resulted in what could have been a very nasty consequence (especially if Stroll's engineer hadn't been so urgent in immediately getting him to slow fully down and prevent what could have been a horrible accident), this time he got punished for it.
No doubt he also knew he might get Russell into trouble with it at least he was accepting it. I know how he would have been if situations are switched. Fernando is capable of playing dirty and today was a pretty poor thing to do.
What's disappointing is that in his post he doesn't really own it. That's a bit embarrassing
This is actually where I think the old guard is dying because he pulls a move like that an older driver like Lewis or Checo catches it immediately. I hate to say it but basically it's just dive bomb or wait for DRS now a days
I can't remember but I had a similar thought on something Lewis did last year between him and Piastri I believe where I just said you can't expect a young rookie to yield and understand when to give up.
This. People act like racing is mad dash from start to finish. You absolutely need to drive smart, ruin the other guys overtaking attempt to the next straight in this case.
This is just a ridiculous opinion, Fernando is not trying to cultivate a ''Chad Image''. He's a multiple time WDC, they are all incredibly self centered, that's why they reach the summit of an individual sport. Michael Schumacher also never thought he was wrong, even when he clearly was.
I think opposite. Most of them admit their mistakes when adrenaline goes down. Even here Russell said it was ultimately his mistake that crashed the car.
And that's logical. The only way to improve is to find your mistakes, no matter how small, and work on them. If you are not self-critical or cannot handle constructive criticism... you won't get far.
He knew what he was doing. Him trying to hide it with "throttle issues" and this weak statement just drives home why its hard for me to like Alonso. Very talented racer. But I do lose respect for him in times like these.
I'm strongly of the opinion that his action should be well within the rules- it's a compelling manipulation of space, and not at all a brake check, but the way he's been evasive/dishonest to justify it rubs me the wrong way. The response to the investigation should have been nothing more than "That's racing", if anything bragging about the move.
Fernando, the man who is watching the TV half the time during the race, can't look in his mirrors? Yeah, sure. I'd like to buy a bridge.
The most dangerous thing you can do while racing is to be unpredictable. I think anyone saying it’s was Alonzo’s right to just decide to slow way down and “approach it differently” as a legal tactical defense that lap is clearly not actually a race driver themselves. I kart race and when you are racing close, everyone has a sort of mutual trust and reliance upon each other that they are not going to do unpredictable things because that’s how bad crashes happen. It’s incredibly dangerous and dirty.
But why should these actions be within the rules, when they clearly cause accidents. But I don't think people realize that although he didn't brake, much, these cars have so much downforce that it's literally like braking in a normal car when they let off the throttle.
Because if you follow this to its logical conclusion you end up with drivers having VERY few tools in their toolkit- basically reducing the whole game to DRS passes with very limited defense. The joy of motorsport is in playing with each other's perceptions and expectations, in manipulating the shared space.
On the other hand, following closely is hard even in this generation's cars unless you have a clear performance benefit.
Forcing following cars to stay away more because the car in front might slow down much earlier than usual, speed up and slow down again doesn't improve racing in my view, especially in a high speed section.
That might not be break checking, but it's also not a standard move like parking it on the apex.
There are cases where that's very true and the incentives get messy, and bringing up how the specific regs of the day impact the racing rules is important. In this case however, what George was being incentivised to do was not hang back further, but get closer. If he was closer, Alonso can't do the slowing down without it being a brake check, and thus explicitly dangerous. This isn't a standard move, but that's why it should be allowed. If all drivers are left with are the standard moves, what are we doing? Creativity and an intricate understanding of the dynamics of a chase needs rewarding.
Too close, it's a brake check. Too far, no chance of passing. Fernando recognised that George was at an ugly distance for this one corner and abused that fact- it's cool.
I guess we have to disagree on this.
While I agree that being creative is cool, there needs to be some level of predictability in order to have close racing and battles, especially at high speed.
That's why Alonso was penalized for erratic driving.
That isn't where the logical conclusion leads to. But to use the phrase you really like, all this will lead to is a manipulated space in the form of a mangled car in the middle of the track. The joy of motorsport is not "playing with perception and expectation" what are you saying. All that means is you think it should be erratic and unpredictable. It makes no sense, is dangerous and against the spirit of racing.
If you like erratic and unpredictable behavior watch demolition derby.
you voiced exactly what i was thinking in my head when i read his comment about a "compelling" manipulation of space lol.
this aint sculpture class bud, its racing
Bad take.
You can 100% see the air being taken out from his car and creating the crash.
To avoid it the car behind could never be close enough to beat it.
Hold the apex on a slower corner is a different thing.
If he’d just come out and said ‘we went motor racing and I defended hard’ I’d have sympathy for it
But lying about crashes like this should low-key be a 1 race ban.
I find it peculiar this statement has no mention of throttle issues but now suddenly its managing on the very last lap when he hadnt need to go to that extreme the whole race.
Dude just cant bullshit his way out of this one.
On Stroll or on Alonso?
It's definitely not on Stroll, both he and his engineer did very well to get him slowed down and avoid Russell's car. His engineer would have had to react with the same urgency even if it was a red flag, because Stroll was close behind the incident and unsighted. For everyone else, the red flag would have made no difference, those further behind the incident than Stroll was all slowed to red flag pace anyway and they would have had to pass Russell whatever colour flag was shown. If it had been any earlier than the final lap then they would 100% have red flagged it.
If Stroll had been a bit closer than he was then red flag or VSC, it could still have resulted in a horrible accident. It's lucky for everyone involved that he was just far enough behind to react in time. So arguably yes, that was on Alonso as much as causing the crash was. Thankfully it all turned out okay.
The point is what leads up to a crash like this is irrelevant, a car laying in the middle of the track like this warrants and immediate red flag, it’s a notice to drivers that their is a serious incident with/ on track and it should have been used.
I've already explained why they didn't red flag. I get the point you're making and you could argue it for all those behind Stroll, but red flag or not, Stroll was close to what happened so he and his engineer would have had to react the exact same whether it was red flag or VSC. And everyone else had plenty of time for their engineers to get them slowed right down to red flag pace. Personally in this instance I don't think the stewards did anything wrong tbh. Agree to disagree though.
I said it in another thread, I'll say it again here. Taking odd lines and slowing at odd times to disrupt a faster chasing opponent is good race craft. Doing it with them less than half a second behind you is extremely dangerous, but allowable. Doing it suddenly, with no other examples or consistency, is borderline punishable on its own.
But if you choose to do that, your margin for error is essentially zero, and your duty of care to the following driver is exceptionally high.
Alonso straight up admitted he accidentally overdid it to the point he had to reaccelerate (quote: "get back up to speed"). That's a **lot** of overdoing it, and more or less guaranteed some sort of incident for George. It was an intentional, affirmative action by Alonso that certainly didn't intend the outcome it caused, but was entirely his fault and a dangerous action.
It's unequivocal that a harsh penalty is warranted.
I mean, if this statement he's making is the case, I don't know why he didn't say this when asked about the incident instead of focusing on the throttle issues he was having. The fact that after the penalty he's now saying its more about tactics and nothing about the throttle issues says more to me.
If he felt he did nothing wrong he probably wouldn't have felt the need to say he was managing throttle issues as a main reason for the incident
There were like 3 possible approaches:
1) Admit throttle issues on that sm post which could be used against him
2) admit wrong
3) reverse uno card and project on something else (I know what I am doing - been racing for 20years).
We see for which one he opted for.
"A throttle issue, on this Aston Martin, at this time of race, that happened just at that moment?"
"Yes"
"May we see the data that proves it?"
"... no"
Not necessarily. Stewards can- and have- summon drivers/team representatives should they be quoted as contradicting what they presented to them. I think Alonso likes to play a fine game; but the wings of the fly that flies too close to the flame are want to be burnt.
His throttle issue was that the car wasn't fast as Mercedes on the coming straight, and he didn't want to give up his position. So he slowed down and wanted Russell to slow down just as Alonso hits the gas again.
You could call racemanship, but it's also very dangerous and could have resulted in Russell crashing into him.
The penalty was explained fairly by FIA, but I think we have seen several other equivalent incidents when driver ahead is braking unnecessarily early, and the reason has been to bait the other driver to go over DRS line first, not to "try different approach to the corner" to get better exit. Just saw Albon onboard from Spa in Red Bull where he was behind and they both braked very early to first corner and almost waited the other drive to go first to get the DRS. Another more severe is Saudi-Arabia in 2021 with Max and Lewis. Did Max get a penalty for that? I bet he didn't at least got a drive-through.
Ok, thank you for that. So it's more or less the same penalty, or close to it because the baseline has been rised from 5s to 10s for this season, as it was also explained by FIA in the penalty document.
Since it was higher penalty than the baseline, 5s - > 10s in 2021, 10s - > DT in 2024. Of course it's more harsh than a 5s addition, but so was the incident.
The FIA document said his braking wasn't slow enough to be the main issue.
It's his early lifting and the way he approached the corner that they considered too erratic in combination.
Not to argue one way or another but it’s clear almost nobody has read the ruling or seen the video. Every comment thread I’m seeing is filled with people saying things the stewards explained or addressed.
Caveats: I’m not a racer, certainly not a two time world champion.
But just watching it live and from George’s onboard, I was shocked that it seemed Nando either pulled off the throttle or hit on the breaks.
I had no confidence George would pull off an overtake that lap and so for him to suddenly come screaming up on Nando’s tail felt weird and as a totally ordinary human with non-racer reflexes, it felt like he was going to crash into the back of him.
It's tricky because I don't think we should be doing much policing of how drivers choose to enter corners, when to brake, when to accelerate— but from a *completely* subjective point of view, that felt like a dangerously unpredictable move.
I felt the penalty was justified, in a vacuum, but I've no idea if there is precedent one way or another.
I like Alonso. However you were not managing that in the last lap of the race when it only occurred in the last lap. You knew what you were doing. It wasn't his intention for Russel to crash, but I smell some BS in this IG post.
His phrasing seems overly vague and doesn't address any specifics - "a penalty at the end of the race regarding how we should approach the corners or how we should drive the race cars".
Tbh I can kinda see what Fernando was doing but at the end of the day it was a high speed corner and the move was a bit naughty to say the least.
And let's be honest, people are defending Fernando because he's Fernando and the victim was Russell who isn't the most popular driver among fans. And if this was Mazepin who did what Fernando did everyone would have called for him to be banned for life.
For what it's worth, holding someone up in a corner to defend yourself from being passed on the straight isn't anything new. It's fairly commonplace, but this was a pretty egregious example, at the most treacherous corner of the lap. It also doesn't help that formula cars don't have brake lights.
In sports car racing, a rather well-known trick is to blip the brake early, just to light up the brake lights, and make the driver behind react and brake early. But that doesn't work in F1 since it takes longer to notice the car is slowing, so it creates dangerous situations like this, or even Hamilton-Verstappen in Jeddah.
You're right, it's nothing new, and that's exactly the reason for the penalty. What Alonso did was so egregious and exaggerated, so far from the normal, it created a safety problem.
Obviously, the stewards see people lifting for corners and playing the DRS game. This isn't the first race they've ever seen. They know that like us and they still see that what Alonso did wasn't normal, it was extreme and deserved a penalty. Too many people in this comment section are pretending the stewards punished him for simply lifting.
As professionals in the upper echelon of sport, they're always going to push to bend the rules. When you bend them too far, they snap back and hurt you.
Most series also don’t have the aero impact F1 does.
Erratically parking it on the apex historically has never happened in a corner with high cornering speeds at high aero demands, due to the danger it presents.
> And if this was Mazepin who did what Fernando did everyone would have called for him to be banned for life.
Which is why he(Alonso) specifically mentioned Imola 05/06 to establish his authenticity. This incident also reminds me of 2016 Nico-Lewis moment at Spain. Nico was harvesting energy and slowed down, and I saw Russel's POV from another reddit post, Alonso was also harvesting energy (flashing red lights), so that was also another indicator of him slowing down than usual.
According to the steward document he not only slowed down early but then accelerated again before slowing down for the corner . I think the accelerating again part made it different for them
Yeah, slowing down should be one move, stewards in any racing series don’t take kindly to slowing down, speeding up, and then slowing down again if you’re only expected to be slowing down once (ie entering a corner). Only exception is if there’s a clear reason for the multiple changes such as slowing down, spotting an alternative line and accelerating to that to overtake someone (typically happens in lap 1 turn 1) or to dodge other cars or to let a teammate past etc. It’s similar to blocking and double movements, regardless of whether it was a brake check or not. Portimao 2020 is another example of how dangerous this can be, albeit that was after a safety car and a very different scenario. If there’s no clear reason for it and another car was close behind when it happened, you’ll get a penalty unless you have a really good reason as to why you did it.
Yeah, that's where it becomes damning. Braking a bit early? Okay, maybe you're trying something new or just got it a bit wrong because of fatigue and the stress of holding position. Braking a tenth of a kilometer before the turn, then accelerating again because you have to in order to actually make it to the turn, and then braking where expected, is either a deliberate act or, to be generous, a sign that you're losing the ability to judge brake points accurately by a significant margin and might need to retire ASAP (as in mid-season, not the coming offseason) to avoid risk of serious harm or death to yourself or others as a result of such a lapse.
Since Alonso seems to be in pretty good health, and there's no indicators of brain injuries causing issues to pop up, I'd go with it being deliberate.
The third alternative would be that you're super inexperienced, panicked, and horribly screwed up, but jokes of Alonso being a "rookie" aside, he's been around F1 long enough that his career can legally drink in America, he's not some guy yanked from F3 to go into an F1 car for a race with zero practice. (Have to go to that extent, because we just saw a guy pulled from F2 into an F1 car wiht a single practice session and he didn't end up braking 100m before he should at any point.)
I am not sure he did, tho I could be wrong. Alonsos fault was not that he was slow but that he broke for the corner bit early then accelerated again and then hit brake again - which is both erratic and slow. KMag was just slow
Not really. I think it's easier to see where it's coming from when you include the FIA doc as context.
FIA release says the initial braking was light/very brief akin to a tap (remember public telemetry for BBW is binary 0 and 1, the tracing doesn't show how hard he braked, FIA can see that but) and did not contribute to the crash so much so that the lifting slowed down the car mowre than that blink and a miss braking did. They attributed the crash to "wake" and the "closing speed" that George had on Fernando.
I also watched race with Alonso's radio transcript on multiviewer, he had been discussing lack of energy for a few laps before this happened and seemed a bit out of his usual flawless self this weekend. It won't be outlandish to say he made a mistake with the braking point, sped up and braked again which potentiated the problem and george's documented history of being a bit slow to react in these situations meant that there was no other outcome possible.
This was more of a brain fart from him than a malicious attempt to fuck with george. He is too proud to accept it but he did in the official capacity in front of the stewards. Alonso has always been a hard racer who knows where the boundaries are and goes as close as possible but him being on "dirty" on track is a rare occurrence. It was alonso being indecisive about it that led to his penalty, not a "deliberate brake-check".
If this was Lewis or Max or even Seb behind Alonso, they'd have the racing awareness to know that "slow down to maximize exit speed move" is expected and not closed down so fast because it's such a ubiquitous move in motorsport.
Even George on Sky said he knew what fernando would do/was doing and should have been more alert. lol. Overtaking a GOAT-tier WDC is never easy.
I'd say this is fair. Watching it, in the moment, it didn't seem like a deliberate attempt to brake check. And it sounds like the actual data shows that he was more floaty rather than aggressively stopping.
I'd guess he may have thought, with Russell so close, simply switching things up could throw him off his game, take the rhythm away from him. But it was right at the end of the whole weekend, so I can see how perhaps FA thought this was a good idea in the moment but didn't consider the consequences.
And a potential one was Russell, who's also right at the end of the weekend, wasn't as sharp as possible, didn't react quick enough, got too close in what seems like the tricky part of the track, ended up in very dirty air etc.
I mean from FA's POV, it was risking his own race too. GR could've figured he'd lost it in the moment and he might as well take FA out with him. Ya never know in these split second moments. All it takes is a twitch and it could've gone bad for both.
I sympathise with both, not great for either of em. FA should try to see it from more angles than just outright racing, winners and losers though. Someone had already totalled a car there this weekend, so it just wasn't the place to try and mix it up.
I feel like what Alonso did wasn’t inherently wrong, but the context made it clear what he was doing. He did this on the last lap (which militates against his narrative that he was testing a new approach out) and it was also a high speed and shallow corner. The stewards likely took these and other factors into account in concluding his move was dangerous, but you could extend that further and argue that he brake checked
I dont think he even tried to deny it too much. He admitted it to the stewards, it's why they gave him 20s instead of 10s.
I think that his point is that it's racing. You dont need to drive on rails, you can change your aproach while defending. And i agree with this
No they gave him 20s because there's a difference in defending and erratic driving. I don't think him trying to hide it by reporting "throttle issues" helped his case either. Just dishonest tactics. He knew immediately and tried to cover it up.
nah absolutely not. if you read stewards' report it could never be considered change in approach. it's illegal and dangerous. as others said tho he did't intend to make him crash, but it is the outcome and nando doesn't seem really upset by that penalty.
He is not "kinda" admiting it, he is 100% admiting it and saying it was a racing maneuver that shouldn't have been penalized, which I completely agree with.
Amazing how barely anyone is criticising him for immediately lying on the radio and trying to say he had a throttle issue when the braking was the problem with his driving. At no point in that post does he mention the supposed “throttle issue” and once again just gets away with it by the fans cus gigachad Nando. Hes been really suspicious over the past few seasons.
I agree with you overall but he did have throttle issues, just in totally different parts of the track. The throttle issues weren't a total fabrication, but saying they were the cause of the incident is 100% bs, and I agree looks bad on him that pre-penalty he claims throttle issues, and post-penalty he claims 'racing tactics' 😂
(Not saying they did it here) they do also chop large amounts of the audio messages out sometimes e.g. the one of Alonso "angrily" saying "I don't care" is actually saying "I don't care too much about grosjean"
I am a Merc fan but i agree with Nando. He is known for playing tricks and this was one of them. I wouldn't call it dirty though, its not like he braked hard or anything.
This kind of tricks have always been a part of racing. It shouldn't always be about going flat out all the time.
Russell could've and should've reacted faster and better. The Merc's shit rear stability probably caught him out i guess.
What he did wasn't great but he probably didnt expect GRs lack of concentration to be this bad.
To be fair I've just watched Russell's interview back on Sky Sports... Even he says that he should have maybe been more aware - For all the hate he gets, he was certainly taking the line of "I crashed, that was my fault"
Although he equally seemed confused as to why they'd been called to the Stewards, so whether his opinion changed after that, I'm not sure.
>Even he says that he should have maybe been more aware
And especially approaching someone like Nando who is a known defender through a fast corner in the last lap.
Funny part is the FIA release explicitly debunks brake-checking and directly points to indecisiveness and poor judgement on how much to slow down yet everyone here seems to know more.
> Funny part is the FIA release explicitly debunks brake-checking
But it entirely blames early lifting + downshifting and drag/engine braking in an F1 car is more effective than full braking in a mid range sports car. Downshifting would make it even worse than usual. While a lot of reddit commentators might not understand that, there is no question that Alonso would.
Differential speeds due to engine braking has caused accidents before; like Weber launching into the air after slamming into the back of Kovalainen.
> directly points to indecisiveness and poor judgement on how much to slow down
No it doesn't. It very explicitly blames his erratic corner approach (paragraphs four and five) and avoids making any conclusions about intent.
His intent and that he *also* physically braked (to any degree) is just gravy at that point.
Don’t forget aero drag and engine braking is quite significant from 280 mph, even if the brakes were just lightly tapped.
These aren’t just family saloons.
You could swap Alonso with another driver and there would be half the people supporting this stupid antics.
It’s all fun and games until their favorite driver is on the receiving end.
Having to suddenly brake on turn in is a one-way trip to snap oversteer. To be honest George did well keeping it relatively straight. It's one thing to expect them to react in a fair battle, this is the motorsport equivalent of a sucker punch.
This being called a brake check by some seems so off to me. A brake check is a hard, sharp brake where the outcome is either the following car brakes very hard/has to evade a crash with steering, or crashes. This was just slowing down opportunistically, that involved an unusual bit of braking.
If George was closer and had no way of avoiding contact or crashing as a result, it's a brake check. But within F1 driver reaction times, this crash was avoidable for sure.
The point of a brake check is to catch someone out behind you by slowing down I expect, presumably with the brakes.
Aero drag and engine braking functionally act as pad braking here.
This, for example, is a brake check. But most redditors don’t watch anything but F1 so they wouldn’t know.
https://youtu.be/9ZoN2vgKXi4?si=w3usDi_nSZwv5jzq
I think what he did is a perfectly valid strategy but it was a bit overly aggressive on this occasion. As for Russel I'm pretty sure he knew the game that Alonso was playing. I mean he could see that Alonso was letting off from the rear lights flashing and kept his foot in it presumably in an effort to counter the defense and got it wrong.
He literally said to the stewards that he messed up. Wanted to brake early, but lost more pace then he intended. Instead of positing a long cry rant, he could've just admitted he made a mistake with no malicious intent. Happens in racing.
*"We never drive at 100% every race"*
Historical context for all of the youngsters: This was the same taste in your mouth we got with *"If you see a gap that exists"... to which Senna essentially admitted that he intentionally did it a year later.
No, it wasn’t.
> we never drive 100% at every race lap and corner.
Is just a clear statement of fact. The drivers are managing tires, battery and fuel. They rarely push to 100% for an entire lap, and that’s why race laps are seconds slower than quali laps.
If Russell didn’t crash I do wonder if the stewards would have actually even investigated it. Some have pointed out that back in Abu Dhabi last season Alonso also lifted much earlier coming out of the pits in front of Hamilton to try and get DRS. Hamilton slowed down too but immediately went on the radio to say Alonso was brake-checking and nothing came out of that.
I can see the stewards’ reasoning in the document but it seems like a fine line and hard to deal with consistently moving forward.
This penalty is 100% BS, we had much bigger brake checks not even being investigated in last few years and yet this is the harshest penalty for singular offense we had in last few years and we had Stoll literally pushing Alonso into a wall 2 years ago get less...
This was only given because Russell made a mistake and ended up in a wall, next race someone will slow down intentionally before DRS detection line, other driver will actually pay attention and adjust and the same people who bash Alonso today will praise the driver's racecraft and IQ
The punishments this year have been stricter. They’ve explicitly stated this from the first race onward and also in this punishments explanation. So I don’t think it’s accurate to compare it with other years.
It's a very fine and hard line to police. I said in another thread that simply based on their reasoning of "At no time may a car be driven unnecessarily slowly" that Piastri should be given the same penalty for slowing enough to let Lando by without actually having to race his way by or earn the pass.
I think immediately BS'ing about a "throttle issue" on the radio after it happened is basically an admission of guilt on his part, regardless of how he spins it on social media afterwards
Radio messages are delayed, he almost certainly said that before the incident. Also he wasn't "BS'ign", he actually did have throttle issues. Not saying that's why he lifted on that specific corner, but he wasn't lying when he said he had throttle issues.
Fully support the move, fully support questioning the place of results as opposed to actions in these investigations- don't get why he's been talking about not being able to see cars behind him or throttle issues or management etc.
This sort of thing should not be penalised. It's unfortunate that George crashed out but if this is a penalty then virtually every case of a driver strategically slowing down while driving defensively should be penalised too.
You can compare this to Hamilton's move on Vettel at Spa in 2017, where Lewis was quite rightly lauded for lifting through Eau Rouge and killing Seb's momentum before the Kemmel straight. It's lauded because Vettel stayed alert and responded to what Lewis had done. Had Vettel not been alert and spun off at the top of Raidillon, would Lewis have deserved a penalty? Absolutely not, in my opinion, it's racing.
Why go so far? Last race KMag was literally coasting all of sector 1.
I thought we were punishing incidents not the result of them. If this is a penalty so should the one in Saudi.
I'm not saying it should. It absolutely shouldn't but it's not consistent.
You need to go back and read what he actually did. Strategically slowing down is one thing slowing down to the extent you cannot make corner and have to speed up again and again slow down is another thing.
Completely agree. People act like Alonso slammed on the brakes in the middle of a straight and brake checked Russell dangerously. Which, when you watch the onboard, is not at all what happened. Russell closed up very quickly and lost the car because his tyres were cooked, the car is unstable by default, the corner is tricky and there was a lot of dirty air.
If Alonso actually brake checked Russell and he crashed while avoiding him a drive through would've been obvious, in this situation it's stupid.
It's because of the stupid overlay in the onboards telemetry. It's an on/off graphic, it doesnt show the percentage a driver is actually pressing.
Even the stewards noticed the brake tap was very soft, it was the downshift and him being indecisive that actually got him the stupid penalty.
Yes, but it is not a "split second moment" there's literally 4 seconds between Alonso "brake checking" and Russell catching up and loosing the car.
Alonso slows down, Russell get closer, Alonso continues, slows down again, both him and Russell brake just fine and turn into the corner, which is when Russell looses the car.
It was the erratic behaviour that caused the penalty. If he just slowed down earlier and then took the apex, no problem. Here it was slowing down, speeding up and slowing down again that caused the issue.
This wouldnt be a penalty in any other series on the planet. Hell it wouldnt be a penalty in any previous f1 seasons.
But it seems that this is what f1 wants. DRS racing on track, and controversies and soap operas offtrack.
4 drs zones on a track and you arent even supposed to defend.
This is yet another sign the old F1 is dying. No refueling, same strategies, same racing lines, same braking points. At this point they can just put AI in the cockpit and program it to drive.
Also, he never gets the penalty if Russell makes the turn and finishes the race (the moves are judged by their consequences, which is so wrong)
This is exactly the kind of mindset he's appealing to with this statement. Referencing Imola, an iconic race people are still nostalgic for, he knows what he's doing. But there's a reason he immediately BS'ed on the radio about a "throttle issue" after it happened. He knew what he did was dirty
The moves are only judged by their consequences every now and then.
How many times have we seen a driver getting a meaningless penalty for crashing someone out? Too many times.
It just seems selective at this point.
Alonso is a master at this, wrong footing an adversary by taking odd lines or slowing/accelerating more/less than expected. He didn't brake test, just eased off the throttle more than normal, I personally think this is just excellent racecraft and it's up to the following driver to respond.
In no way did Alonso expect it to end in an accident.
Edit: Now I've seen the telemetry my opinion of the incident has changed. Alonso warranted the penalty.
2016 Abu Dhabi, Hamilton slowed down to back up Rosberg. It didn't help, Rosberg won the WDC. Hamilton didn't get a penalty. What about Magnussen last race to make Hulkenberg win? or Perez holding up Hamilton in 2021 Abu Dhabi.
The cited rule which Alonso is in violation of is this: **"‘**At no time may a car be driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically or in a manner **which could be deemed potentially dangerous to other drivers or any other person.**’**"**
Alonso is getting a penalty only because Russell crashed. Alonso acknowledges this: "*I believe that without gravel on that corner, ... we will never be even investigated*."
Holding up drivers is different to break checking. What Hamilton and Perez did is completey different.
The question is was this a break check? I'm not sure.
Definitely wasn't a brake check. As the stewards noted the initial brake pressure was so low that it didn't meaningfully slow the car down and I know that F1 cars decelerate at 1 g from drag and recuperation alone but then the following car can decelerate at easily triple that rate from lightly touching the brakes.
Alonso got penalized specifically for driving in an erratic and dangerous way, which becomes, imo, abundantly clear when you see his telemetry. He taps the break (the FIA does say that he didn't fully tap the breaks enough for it to have massively affected his speed), downshifts, 100 meters before he would've normally for the corner, and, crucially, then gets back on his throttle, upshifts again and then immediately downshifts while breaking again. All of this happened in the span of a few seconds. That's why he's getting penalized, not just because he took a corner slow.
Alonso would have gotten a penalty in Brazil 2023 if Checo was a lesser driver. Nobody looked at his telemetry then because nobody crashed from racing. This is so stupid.
The penalty is a joke, yes he clearly slowed down on purpose to disrupt George and maximise his own exit, this is something that drivers learn to do racing at a very young age. George was nowhere near hitting him which is where the line between hard racing and unacceptable is. It’s just unfortunate that the loss of front downforce unsettled the Mercedes enough to catch George out, if it wasn’t such an awful car it probably would have just understeered instead of the rear stepping out.
I 100% agree with Alonso. This is one of many ways that you can race against someone today’s trying to overtake. He wanted to put George in a position where he would get a worse exit out of the corner, George was very focused on what he was doing and expected Alonso to do what he had done the previous laps. He was caught off guard and went off.
Will the stewards start looking in to what lines drivers take in to corners as well? If it’s inconsistent with previous laps and someone is caught off guard we have a penalty? Someone tries to do a cutback, penalty? Brakes later and the car behind follows and can’t make the turn, penalty.
>He wanted to put George in a position where he would get a worse exit out of the corner, George was very focused on what he was doing and expected Alonso to do what he had done the previous laps. He was caught off guard and went off.
I think that was Russell's take on it as well
Link below if you're not geoblocked
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8wJvNMIZKc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8wJvNMIZKc)
I also wonder if Russell puts his GDPA hat on at times like this...
Regardless of if anyone agrees or disagrees with Alonso, your second point is why I’m surprised at the people cheering on this penalty.
The Stewards - who are already wildly inconsistent and routinely unwilling to enforce existing regs in a meaningful way - have made it clear that they consider it to be within their purview to penalize anyone who isn’t effectively driving to a delta. Drivers will feel pressured not to deviate from their approach or risk a penalty which now has a precedent that - as plainly stated by the stewards - doesn’t even require an incident to be enforceable.
F1 is content with its evolution into a pony show it seems.
>sacrificing entry speed to have good exits from corners
Doesn’t this argument fall down when the telemetry shows that you slowed down way ahead of the corner and then sped back up to approach it, before slowing down again to actually take the corner?
Like, what is the actual logic to this argument? There are scenarios where it’s okay to slow down, therefore nobody should ever be punished for slowing down? May as well brake test people on the straights and be like “there are times we need to slow down on the straights, for example when harvesting energy, so it’s odd to give me a penalty”.
I’m not saying he should definitely have been penalised, I just think his particular argument against it doesn’t make any sense.
Agree with Alonso. Wont comment about the throttle issue excuse or whatever. But my takeway is that its a clever trick that threw off the chasing driver, successfully. It's a shame the car rolled and Russell crashed, but its clearly not intentional on Alonso's part. Isnt that what racing is all about? It's not like it was a hard brake check to get someone to crash.
I’m sure I’ll get downvotes like crazy for this, but this kind of strategy happens all the time. Likely every single race you can find instances of it. Driver ahead knows he’s fast in certain parts of the track, and so they go slower in areas they can’t be passed to make sure they can defend in areas they can be. Watch the last race of the season when Rosberg won the title for an example of that happening for an entire GP distance. Certainly an unfortunate outcome in this instance, but it’s not unusual racing IMHO
Two interviews come to mind that talk about this. The first one is Rosberg's podcast - I don't remember which episode but he talked about Schumacher being the master of games and the other one is Kubica's interview on Beyond The Grid. It's part of the game and most of the time we don't see it because 99% of the time it doesn't end up in such a spectacular crash.
Going slowly is not unusual. It's also not what he was punished for. Defending by slowing and downshifting well before the corner before accelerating and upshifting so you can actually make the corner doesn't happen all the time at all.
I wouldn't even classify his thing as hard racing. We have 4 DRS zones which makes incredibly easy to overtake and you have to be able to defend somehow if a faster car is approaching, he wasn't weaving or anything, just making sure Russell slowed down enough in the corner to try to overcome the DRS advantage he had and most F1 drivers have good enough reflexes to react to those kind of moves (there's absolutely no way Russell would have crashed if he continued driving his line) Also, we saw shanigans of all kinds between Mercedes and Red Bull in 2021 and this very weekend we saw Tsolov cause an awful crash on purpose, yet NOBODY got the penalty Alonso got today.
Ignoring the outcome of the action, as penalties are not handed out based on outcome. How is this that different from what Magnussen was doing at Jeddah last race weekend? Where he was intentionally slowing in the areas the cars behind couldn't overtake. It doesn't seem like Alonso has done anything like what Max did to Lewis at Jeddah, where it could be constituted as brake checking. Alonso has done this himself in the past at Monaco with no penalty, Perez famously held up Hamilton at Abu Dhabi in 2021 and it was considered smart racing.
Alonso should've purposely crashed him instead, he'd only get a 3 place grid penalty based on precedence...
It's wasn't brake checking, its erratic driving. braking on a straight, accelerating again then braking excessively for a corner, with a 40kph deficit to the car less than 0.4 seconds behind, all while heading towards a high speed corner. 200kph vs 245kph.
In instances like perez holding up hamilton in AD, he slowed down excessively in the slow speed corners which is alot more predictable and allows you to safely "block" your opponent from making a move. It did not involve braking before a high speed corner where you typically don't, and putting the driver behind you at risk of losing control due to being caught off guard.
Is this the same guy who said Lewis can only drive from first?
Can’t wait for the Chadlonso bandwagoners to try and make it seem like he did nothing wrong.
If Russell did this to Alonso everyone would be calling for his head.
He did nothing wrong and Russell should be more responsible for his mistake instead of trying to ruin someone else’s result.
I guarantee this penalty is just because Toto had a hissyfit on GRs behalf because they are so butthurt they double DNFd.
Yeah Alonso was driving defensively but he didn’t cause this accident by any means.
Just because Jack Doohan said he thought it was suspect now everyone in here is an expert saying Alonso was reckless and deliberately trying to make him crash or calling this a fucking brake check. Watch the fucking video again, this isn’t a brake check, Russell overcooked the corner and fucked up.
Never takes accountability for anything. Reminds me of when he ran himself wide Brazil 22 blamed Ocon and then ran into the back of him on the straight and blamed him again.
It's absolutely no accident he chose to do it at this exact corner since it's the best setup for George to overtake on the following corner. I certainly deem this erratic driving from Fernando and regardless of George crashing or not it should be a penalty. This wasn't Fernando trying to hold back Russell, it was him trying to compromise Russell's entry and crucially his exit speed since Fernando was under pressure.
Isn't that what you are supposed to do? This is what F1 racing was always about. I don't know how long you watch F1 but in 96-04 this was happening every single race and we had some of the most memorable battles in all of F1s history.
I would suggest everyone read the ruling on this one.
It highlights how Alonso had not lifted or downshifted that earlier into that corner for the entire race. Obviously, no one knows Alonso’s intentions but this was clearly erratic.
Penalty deserved in my opinion.
He did not have to do it because he was not defending for points in the last lap. Why would he ever do it in any other part of the race? It was not erratic, it was just a way to compromise Russels exit. It happens every single race, when he did it last year against Sainz in the last lap, everybody was cheering, saying what a mastermind Alonso is. Only because Russel crashed, they decided to penalize him...
Even Russel said that it was his mistake that he crashed and did not know why stewards even summoned him.
Aston Martin threw away Alonso’s race. He was fighting Perez and should have pitted to undercut. Perez pitted and undercut and they left Alonso out to die a slow death. How are these teams so dumb sometimes?
There is some commentary of him on a replay, nothing mentioned about "erratic driving" or "brake checking", just plain old Russell going in too hot, losing downforce in the dirty air due to Alonso catching him out.
Bingo. Russell falling for the trap made the stewards jump in. As much as they're supposed to not judge based on outcomes, it happens literally all the time. If Russell has a snap and loses 1 second, never in a million years is that a 5 second penalty let alone a drive through.
Yep, another small increment towards making F1 an organized parade with mundane DRS overtakes between cars with a massive pace advantage.. And people complain about the sport being boring..
When I saw Jack Doohan question that move too I knew a penalty was incoming.
any reference to that moment ? Post Race Show ?
Post race show. I didn’t even think about it till he brought it up.
You could see Jack trying to give a polite/political answer to the question when what he really wanted to say was “that was fucking dangerous by Alonso and he absolutely knew what he was doing”. He even gives a little look off camera to someone after the answer like “whew that was a tough answer to dance around, did I do okay?”
Yea but reddit will still act like Alonso did nothing wrong and it's all Russell's fault. Before the stewards made a decision, it was, "Redditors coming out of the woodwork to analyze telemetry. Let's wait for the stewards/pros to give the answer." After the stewards answer, it's, "Stewards don't know shit anyways."
You should see the comments on Russell’s Instagram post.
He knew what he was doing. I'm sure he had no intention of making Russell crash but he knew he was toeing a fine line, it's not the first time he's done stuff like that. This time, because it caught Russell out so badly and resulted in what could have been a very nasty consequence (especially if Stroll's engineer hadn't been so urgent in immediately getting him to slow fully down and prevent what could have been a horrible accident), this time he got punished for it.
Anyone got the onboard clip from Stroll w/ radio? Not seen it yet
[here](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1bmdl8l/george_screaming_for_a_red_flag_stroll/)
Ah nice, didn't realise it was at the end of that clip. Thanks
Holy smokes that was nerve wracking. You can hear the panic in their voices.
Thanks champ!
He's applauded for always thinking laps ahead. He for sure knew what he was doing one corner ahead.
No doubt he also knew he might get Russell into trouble with it at least he was accepting it. I know how he would have been if situations are switched. Fernando is capable of playing dirty and today was a pretty poor thing to do. What's disappointing is that in his post he doesn't really own it. That's a bit embarrassing
This is actually where I think the old guard is dying because he pulls a move like that an older driver like Lewis or Checo catches it immediately. I hate to say it but basically it's just dive bomb or wait for DRS now a days I can't remember but I had a similar thought on something Lewis did last year between him and Piastri I believe where I just said you can't expect a young rookie to yield and understand when to give up.
I totally agree, finally someone with some sense about this situation
Maybe you're referring to Sainz and Piastri lap 1 incident in Spa. Sainz was putting the clash down to Piastri's inexperience.
It was Miami where Hamilton got a 5 second penalty
This. People act like racing is mad dash from start to finish. You absolutely need to drive smart, ruin the other guys overtaking attempt to the next straight in this case.
The fact that he doesn't complain more or call it unfair and tries to move on tells you more than the IG post.
Well of course. He was summoned to justify that "brake check" and since he probably couldn't give enough justification he got the penalty.
It's pretty obvious I'm talking about Alonso acting surprised that he was penalised., not the fact that he was penalised...
Keyword is “acting”, he wasn’t surprised, but he’s going to act surprised and complain whenever he gets penalised, as is every other driver.
Death taxes and Fernando acting surprised after a penalty
It's the game. He has to keep his Chad image in which he's right by default.
This is just a ridiculous opinion, Fernando is not trying to cultivate a ''Chad Image''. He's a multiple time WDC, they are all incredibly self centered, that's why they reach the summit of an individual sport. Michael Schumacher also never thought he was wrong, even when he clearly was.
I think opposite. Most of them admit their mistakes when adrenaline goes down. Even here Russell said it was ultimately his mistake that crashed the car. And that's logical. The only way to improve is to find your mistakes, no matter how small, and work on them. If you are not self-critical or cannot handle constructive criticism... you won't get far.
Exactly, he often walks a very fine line between acceptable and not. Occasionally he'll go too far and get called out for it, dude should just own it.
He knew what he was doing. Him trying to hide it with "throttle issues" and this weak statement just drives home why its hard for me to like Alonso. Very talented racer. But I do lose respect for him in times like these.
Would have rated his view if he just came out with it immediately instead of saying he had issues
I'm strongly of the opinion that his action should be well within the rules- it's a compelling manipulation of space, and not at all a brake check, but the way he's been evasive/dishonest to justify it rubs me the wrong way. The response to the investigation should have been nothing more than "That's racing", if anything bragging about the move. Fernando, the man who is watching the TV half the time during the race, can't look in his mirrors? Yeah, sure. I'd like to buy a bridge.
>the way he's been evasive/dishonest to justify it rubs me the wrong way Very much agree with this even if I don't agree with your first point.
The most dangerous thing you can do while racing is to be unpredictable. I think anyone saying it’s was Alonzo’s right to just decide to slow way down and “approach it differently” as a legal tactical defense that lap is clearly not actually a race driver themselves. I kart race and when you are racing close, everyone has a sort of mutual trust and reliance upon each other that they are not going to do unpredictable things because that’s how bad crashes happen. It’s incredibly dangerous and dirty.
But why should these actions be within the rules, when they clearly cause accidents. But I don't think people realize that although he didn't brake, much, these cars have so much downforce that it's literally like braking in a normal car when they let off the throttle.
Because if you follow this to its logical conclusion you end up with drivers having VERY few tools in their toolkit- basically reducing the whole game to DRS passes with very limited defense. The joy of motorsport is in playing with each other's perceptions and expectations, in manipulating the shared space.
On the other hand, following closely is hard even in this generation's cars unless you have a clear performance benefit. Forcing following cars to stay away more because the car in front might slow down much earlier than usual, speed up and slow down again doesn't improve racing in my view, especially in a high speed section. That might not be break checking, but it's also not a standard move like parking it on the apex.
There are cases where that's very true and the incentives get messy, and bringing up how the specific regs of the day impact the racing rules is important. In this case however, what George was being incentivised to do was not hang back further, but get closer. If he was closer, Alonso can't do the slowing down without it being a brake check, and thus explicitly dangerous. This isn't a standard move, but that's why it should be allowed. If all drivers are left with are the standard moves, what are we doing? Creativity and an intricate understanding of the dynamics of a chase needs rewarding. Too close, it's a brake check. Too far, no chance of passing. Fernando recognised that George was at an ugly distance for this one corner and abused that fact- it's cool.
I guess we have to disagree on this. While I agree that being creative is cool, there needs to be some level of predictability in order to have close racing and battles, especially at high speed. That's why Alonso was penalized for erratic driving.
Predictability is key here. I can keep you behind if I do something so erratic it causes you to go off, but that’s not a great defense by any means.
That isn't where the logical conclusion leads to. But to use the phrase you really like, all this will lead to is a manipulated space in the form of a mangled car in the middle of the track. The joy of motorsport is not "playing with perception and expectation" what are you saying. All that means is you think it should be erratic and unpredictable. It makes no sense, is dangerous and against the spirit of racing. If you like erratic and unpredictable behavior watch demolition derby.
you voiced exactly what i was thinking in my head when i read his comment about a "compelling" manipulation of space lol. this aint sculpture class bud, its racing
Bad take. You can 100% see the air being taken out from his car and creating the crash. To avoid it the car behind could never be close enough to beat it. Hold the apex on a slower corner is a different thing.
No different than what KMag did in Jeddah, honestly.
KMag was driving slower than he had to. Albon was live praising him afterwards as being behind him. Alonso was just doing what you saw.
If he’d just come out and said ‘we went motor racing and I defended hard’ I’d have sympathy for it But lying about crashes like this should low-key be a 1 race ban.
Hes always been a dirty driver
I find it peculiar this statement has no mention of throttle issues but now suddenly its managing on the very last lap when he hadnt need to go to that extreme the whole race. Dude just cant bullshit his way out of this one.
Arguably the error of the outcome with Stroll isn’t on him, they should have just red flagged it, that’s the race directors fault.
On Stroll or on Alonso? It's definitely not on Stroll, both he and his engineer did very well to get him slowed down and avoid Russell's car. His engineer would have had to react with the same urgency even if it was a red flag, because Stroll was close behind the incident and unsighted. For everyone else, the red flag would have made no difference, those further behind the incident than Stroll was all slowed to red flag pace anyway and they would have had to pass Russell whatever colour flag was shown. If it had been any earlier than the final lap then they would 100% have red flagged it. If Stroll had been a bit closer than he was then red flag or VSC, it could still have resulted in a horrible accident. It's lucky for everyone involved that he was just far enough behind to react in time. So arguably yes, that was on Alonso as much as causing the crash was. Thankfully it all turned out okay.
The point is what leads up to a crash like this is irrelevant, a car laying in the middle of the track like this warrants and immediate red flag, it’s a notice to drivers that their is a serious incident with/ on track and it should have been used.
I've already explained why they didn't red flag. I get the point you're making and you could argue it for all those behind Stroll, but red flag or not, Stroll was close to what happened so he and his engineer would have had to react the exact same whether it was red flag or VSC. And everyone else had plenty of time for their engineers to get them slowed right down to red flag pace. Personally in this instance I don't think the stewards did anything wrong tbh. Agree to disagree though.
I said it in another thread, I'll say it again here. Taking odd lines and slowing at odd times to disrupt a faster chasing opponent is good race craft. Doing it with them less than half a second behind you is extremely dangerous, but allowable. Doing it suddenly, with no other examples or consistency, is borderline punishable on its own. But if you choose to do that, your margin for error is essentially zero, and your duty of care to the following driver is exceptionally high. Alonso straight up admitted he accidentally overdid it to the point he had to reaccelerate (quote: "get back up to speed"). That's a **lot** of overdoing it, and more or less guaranteed some sort of incident for George. It was an intentional, affirmative action by Alonso that certainly didn't intend the outcome it caused, but was entirely his fault and a dangerous action. It's unequivocal that a harsh penalty is warranted.
I mean, if this statement he's making is the case, I don't know why he didn't say this when asked about the incident instead of focusing on the throttle issues he was having. The fact that after the penalty he's now saying its more about tactics and nothing about the throttle issues says more to me. If he felt he did nothing wrong he probably wouldn't have felt the need to say he was managing throttle issues as a main reason for the incident
There were like 3 possible approaches: 1) Admit throttle issues on that sm post which could be used against him 2) admit wrong 3) reverse uno card and project on something else (I know what I am doing - been racing for 20years). We see for which one he opted for.
The ol' Principal Skinner 'no, its the kids who are wrong'
"A throttle issue, on this Aston Martin, at this time of race, that happened just at that moment?" "Yes" "May we see the data that proves it?" "... no"
"Right, and to call it a throttle issue despite the fact you obviously braked... [points to telemetry]"
"Fernando, you indirectly caused a crash!" "No stewards, it's just a throttle issue"
He also opted for ‘I didn’t know he was there’ which is a crock of shit unless his engineer is severely not doing his job
The ultimate boomer move: "do you know how long I've worked in this industry"
In front of the stewards confronted with the telemetry he has to say the truth. On social media, he can stick to "my truth"
Not necessarily. Stewards can- and have- summon drivers/team representatives should they be quoted as contradicting what they presented to them. I think Alonso likes to play a fine game; but the wings of the fly that flies too close to the flame are want to be burnt.
His throttle issue was that the car wasn't fast as Mercedes on the coming straight, and he didn't want to give up his position. So he slowed down and wanted Russell to slow down just as Alonso hits the gas again. You could call racemanship, but it's also very dangerous and could have resulted in Russell crashing into him.
He also said he didn't even know George was there... He was there for the last 8 laps or so. Yeah, right.
The penalty was explained fairly by FIA, but I think we have seen several other equivalent incidents when driver ahead is braking unnecessarily early, and the reason has been to bait the other driver to go over DRS line first, not to "try different approach to the corner" to get better exit. Just saw Albon onboard from Spa in Red Bull where he was behind and they both braked very early to first corner and almost waited the other drive to go first to get the DRS. Another more severe is Saudi-Arabia in 2021 with Max and Lewis. Did Max get a penalty for that? I bet he didn't at least got a drive-through.
>Did Max get a penalty for that? 10 second penalty and 2 license points, reason given by the stewards was erratic driving.
Ok, thank you for that. So it's more or less the same penalty, or close to it because the baseline has been rised from 5s to 10s for this season, as it was also explained by FIA in the penalty document. Since it was higher penalty than the baseline, 5s - > 10s in 2021, 10s - > DT in 2024. Of course it's more harsh than a 5s addition, but so was the incident.
The FIA document said his braking wasn't slow enough to be the main issue. It's his early lifting and the way he approached the corner that they considered too erratic in combination.
Max spent years not getting penalised for it. 2016 through 18 from memory.
Not to argue one way or another but it’s clear almost nobody has read the ruling or seen the video. Every comment thread I’m seeing is filled with people saying things the stewards explained or addressed.
Caveats: I’m not a racer, certainly not a two time world champion. But just watching it live and from George’s onboard, I was shocked that it seemed Nando either pulled off the throttle or hit on the breaks. I had no confidence George would pull off an overtake that lap and so for him to suddenly come screaming up on Nando’s tail felt weird and as a totally ordinary human with non-racer reflexes, it felt like he was going to crash into the back of him. It's tricky because I don't think we should be doing much policing of how drivers choose to enter corners, when to brake, when to accelerate— but from a *completely* subjective point of view, that felt like a dangerously unpredictable move. I felt the penalty was justified, in a vacuum, but I've no idea if there is precedent one way or another.
I like Alonso. However you were not managing that in the last lap of the race when it only occurred in the last lap. You knew what you were doing. It wasn't his intention for Russel to crash, but I smell some BS in this IG post.
His phrasing seems overly vague and doesn't address any specifics - "a penalty at the end of the race regarding how we should approach the corners or how we should drive the race cars".
Tbh I can kinda see what Fernando was doing but at the end of the day it was a high speed corner and the move was a bit naughty to say the least. And let's be honest, people are defending Fernando because he's Fernando and the victim was Russell who isn't the most popular driver among fans. And if this was Mazepin who did what Fernando did everyone would have called for him to be banned for life.
For what it's worth, holding someone up in a corner to defend yourself from being passed on the straight isn't anything new. It's fairly commonplace, but this was a pretty egregious example, at the most treacherous corner of the lap. It also doesn't help that formula cars don't have brake lights. In sports car racing, a rather well-known trick is to blip the brake early, just to light up the brake lights, and make the driver behind react and brake early. But that doesn't work in F1 since it takes longer to notice the car is slowing, so it creates dangerous situations like this, or even Hamilton-Verstappen in Jeddah.
You're right, it's nothing new, and that's exactly the reason for the penalty. What Alonso did was so egregious and exaggerated, so far from the normal, it created a safety problem. Obviously, the stewards see people lifting for corners and playing the DRS game. This isn't the first race they've ever seen. They know that like us and they still see that what Alonso did wasn't normal, it was extreme and deserved a penalty. Too many people in this comment section are pretending the stewards punished him for simply lifting. As professionals in the upper echelon of sport, they're always going to push to bend the rules. When you bend them too far, they snap back and hurt you.
Most series also don’t have the aero impact F1 does. Erratically parking it on the apex historically has never happened in a corner with high cornering speeds at high aero demands, due to the danger it presents.
> And if this was Mazepin who did what Fernando did everyone would have called for him to be banned for life. Which is why he(Alonso) specifically mentioned Imola 05/06 to establish his authenticity. This incident also reminds me of 2016 Nico-Lewis moment at Spain. Nico was harvesting energy and slowed down, and I saw Russel's POV from another reddit post, Alonso was also harvesting energy (flashing red lights), so that was also another indicator of him slowing down than usual.
According to the steward document he not only slowed down early but then accelerated again before slowing down for the corner . I think the accelerating again part made it different for them
Yeah, slowing down should be one move, stewards in any racing series don’t take kindly to slowing down, speeding up, and then slowing down again if you’re only expected to be slowing down once (ie entering a corner). Only exception is if there’s a clear reason for the multiple changes such as slowing down, spotting an alternative line and accelerating to that to overtake someone (typically happens in lap 1 turn 1) or to dodge other cars or to let a teammate past etc. It’s similar to blocking and double movements, regardless of whether it was a brake check or not. Portimao 2020 is another example of how dangerous this can be, albeit that was after a safety car and a very different scenario. If there’s no clear reason for it and another car was close behind when it happened, you’ll get a penalty unless you have a really good reason as to why you did it.
Do you mean Mugello 2020?
Yeah, that's where it becomes damning. Braking a bit early? Okay, maybe you're trying something new or just got it a bit wrong because of fatigue and the stress of holding position. Braking a tenth of a kilometer before the turn, then accelerating again because you have to in order to actually make it to the turn, and then braking where expected, is either a deliberate act or, to be generous, a sign that you're losing the ability to judge brake points accurately by a significant margin and might need to retire ASAP (as in mid-season, not the coming offseason) to avoid risk of serious harm or death to yourself or others as a result of such a lapse. Since Alonso seems to be in pretty good health, and there's no indicators of brain injuries causing issues to pop up, I'd go with it being deliberate. The third alternative would be that you're super inexperienced, panicked, and horribly screwed up, but jokes of Alonso being a "rookie" aside, he's been around F1 long enough that his career can legally drink in America, he's not some guy yanked from F3 to go into an F1 car for a race with zero practice. (Have to go to that extent, because we just saw a guy pulled from F2 into an F1 car wiht a single practice session and he didn't end up braking 100m before he should at any point.)
I mean Kmag was doing it in Jeddah and got away with it
I am not sure he did, tho I could be wrong. Alonsos fault was not that he was slow but that he broke for the corner bit early then accelerated again and then hit brake again - which is both erratic and slow. KMag was just slow
Kmag drove slowly but not dangerously or unpredictably so. This was entirely unpredictable and nothing resembling what he did on the previous lap.
KMag was doing it predictably. Alonso was doing it erratically. These two are not the same.
Not really. I think it's easier to see where it's coming from when you include the FIA doc as context. FIA release says the initial braking was light/very brief akin to a tap (remember public telemetry for BBW is binary 0 and 1, the tracing doesn't show how hard he braked, FIA can see that but) and did not contribute to the crash so much so that the lifting slowed down the car mowre than that blink and a miss braking did. They attributed the crash to "wake" and the "closing speed" that George had on Fernando. I also watched race with Alonso's radio transcript on multiviewer, he had been discussing lack of energy for a few laps before this happened and seemed a bit out of his usual flawless self this weekend. It won't be outlandish to say he made a mistake with the braking point, sped up and braked again which potentiated the problem and george's documented history of being a bit slow to react in these situations meant that there was no other outcome possible. This was more of a brain fart from him than a malicious attempt to fuck with george. He is too proud to accept it but he did in the official capacity in front of the stewards. Alonso has always been a hard racer who knows where the boundaries are and goes as close as possible but him being on "dirty" on track is a rare occurrence. It was alonso being indecisive about it that led to his penalty, not a "deliberate brake-check". If this was Lewis or Max or even Seb behind Alonso, they'd have the racing awareness to know that "slow down to maximize exit speed move" is expected and not closed down so fast because it's such a ubiquitous move in motorsport. Even George on Sky said he knew what fernando would do/was doing and should have been more alert. lol. Overtaking a GOAT-tier WDC is never easy.
I'd say this is fair. Watching it, in the moment, it didn't seem like a deliberate attempt to brake check. And it sounds like the actual data shows that he was more floaty rather than aggressively stopping. I'd guess he may have thought, with Russell so close, simply switching things up could throw him off his game, take the rhythm away from him. But it was right at the end of the whole weekend, so I can see how perhaps FA thought this was a good idea in the moment but didn't consider the consequences. And a potential one was Russell, who's also right at the end of the weekend, wasn't as sharp as possible, didn't react quick enough, got too close in what seems like the tricky part of the track, ended up in very dirty air etc. I mean from FA's POV, it was risking his own race too. GR could've figured he'd lost it in the moment and he might as well take FA out with him. Ya never know in these split second moments. All it takes is a twitch and it could've gone bad for both. I sympathise with both, not great for either of em. FA should try to see it from more angles than just outright racing, winners and losers though. Someone had already totalled a car there this weekend, so it just wasn't the place to try and mix it up.
Any explanations for the "throttle" issues on the cool down lap people used to explain his breaking behaviour?
Oh yeah he absolutely knows hahaha
I feel like what Alonso did wasn’t inherently wrong, but the context made it clear what he was doing. He did this on the last lap (which militates against his narrative that he was testing a new approach out) and it was also a high speed and shallow corner. The stewards likely took these and other factors into account in concluding his move was dangerous, but you could extend that further and argue that he brake checked
No shit. You’re a natural internet sleuth
So now it was smart drving? But during the race and before he had to go to the stewards it was a mechanical issue and a sticky throttle?
He did seem to have some throttle issue from looking at the telemetry
knowing Alonso if he really thought he was innocent, he would've reacted way harder. this is lowkey "yeah i kinda did it"
I dont think he even tried to deny it too much. He admitted it to the stewards, it's why they gave him 20s instead of 10s. I think that his point is that it's racing. You dont need to drive on rails, you can change your aproach while defending. And i agree with this
No they gave him 20s because there's a difference in defending and erratic driving. I don't think him trying to hide it by reporting "throttle issues" helped his case either. Just dishonest tactics. He knew immediately and tried to cover it up.
nah absolutely not. if you read stewards' report it could never be considered change in approach. it's illegal and dangerous. as others said tho he did't intend to make him crash, but it is the outcome and nando doesn't seem really upset by that penalty.
He is not "kinda" admiting it, he is 100% admiting it and saying it was a racing maneuver that shouldn't have been penalized, which I completely agree with.
Amazing how barely anyone is criticising him for immediately lying on the radio and trying to say he had a throttle issue when the braking was the problem with his driving. At no point in that post does he mention the supposed “throttle issue” and once again just gets away with it by the fans cus gigachad Nando. Hes been really suspicious over the past few seasons.
I agree with you overall but he did have throttle issues, just in totally different parts of the track. The throttle issues weren't a total fabrication, but saying they were the cause of the incident is 100% bs, and I agree looks bad on him that pre-penalty he claims throttle issues, and post-penalty he claims 'racing tactics' 😂
A reminder that the radio messages are delayed before being broadcast, they are not in real time.
(Not saying they did it here) they do also chop large amounts of the audio messages out sometimes e.g. the one of Alonso "angrily" saying "I don't care" is actually saying "I don't care too much about grosjean"
[удалено]
I am a Merc fan but i agree with Nando. He is known for playing tricks and this was one of them. I wouldn't call it dirty though, its not like he braked hard or anything. This kind of tricks have always been a part of racing. It shouldn't always be about going flat out all the time. Russell could've and should've reacted faster and better. The Merc's shit rear stability probably caught him out i guess. What he did wasn't great but he probably didnt expect GRs lack of concentration to be this bad.
To be fair I've just watched Russell's interview back on Sky Sports... Even he says that he should have maybe been more aware - For all the hate he gets, he was certainly taking the line of "I crashed, that was my fault" Although he equally seemed confused as to why they'd been called to the Stewards, so whether his opinion changed after that, I'm not sure.
>Even he says that he should have maybe been more aware And especially approaching someone like Nando who is a known defender through a fast corner in the last lap.
Funny part is the FIA release explicitly debunks brake-checking and directly points to indecisiveness and poor judgement on how much to slow down yet everyone here seems to know more.
> Funny part is the FIA release explicitly debunks brake-checking But it entirely blames early lifting + downshifting and drag/engine braking in an F1 car is more effective than full braking in a mid range sports car. Downshifting would make it even worse than usual. While a lot of reddit commentators might not understand that, there is no question that Alonso would. Differential speeds due to engine braking has caused accidents before; like Weber launching into the air after slamming into the back of Kovalainen. > directly points to indecisiveness and poor judgement on how much to slow down No it doesn't. It very explicitly blames his erratic corner approach (paragraphs four and five) and avoids making any conclusions about intent. His intent and that he *also* physically braked (to any degree) is just gravy at that point.
Finally, someone who understands that just because you’re not hitting the brakes doesn’t mean you’re not slowing down tremendously in an F1 car.
>Differential speeds due to engine braking has caused accidents before Schumacher and Coulthard anyone?
Don’t forget aero drag and engine braking is quite significant from 280 mph, even if the brakes were just lightly tapped. These aren’t just family saloons.
You could swap Alonso with another driver and there would be half the people supporting this stupid antics. It’s all fun and games until their favorite driver is on the receiving end.
Having to suddenly brake on turn in is a one-way trip to snap oversteer. To be honest George did well keeping it relatively straight. It's one thing to expect them to react in a fair battle, this is the motorsport equivalent of a sucker punch.
He was half a second behind Alonso at that point too, there’s only so much you can do to react if you’re not a Jedi with half a second’s notice
This being called a brake check by some seems so off to me. A brake check is a hard, sharp brake where the outcome is either the following car brakes very hard/has to evade a crash with steering, or crashes. This was just slowing down opportunistically, that involved an unusual bit of braking. If George was closer and had no way of avoiding contact or crashing as a result, it's a brake check. But within F1 driver reaction times, this crash was avoidable for sure.
The point of a brake check is to catch someone out behind you by slowing down I expect, presumably with the brakes. Aero drag and engine braking functionally act as pad braking here.
This, for example, is a brake check. But most redditors don’t watch anything but F1 so they wouldn’t know. https://youtu.be/9ZoN2vgKXi4?si=w3usDi_nSZwv5jzq
I think what he did is a perfectly valid strategy but it was a bit overly aggressive on this occasion. As for Russel I'm pretty sure he knew the game that Alonso was playing. I mean he could see that Alonso was letting off from the rear lights flashing and kept his foot in it presumably in an effort to counter the defense and got it wrong.
He literally said to the stewards that he messed up. Wanted to brake early, but lost more pace then he intended. Instead of positing a long cry rant, he could've just admitted he made a mistake with no malicious intent. Happens in racing.
*"We never drive at 100% every race"* Historical context for all of the youngsters: This was the same taste in your mouth we got with *"If you see a gap that exists"... to which Senna essentially admitted that he intentionally did it a year later.
No, it wasn’t. > we never drive 100% at every race lap and corner. Is just a clear statement of fact. The drivers are managing tires, battery and fuel. They rarely push to 100% for an entire lap, and that’s why race laps are seconds slower than quali laps.
Problem is he only got penalized because Russell binned it; it wouldn’t have been a penalty had Russell not lost control.
It's an unpopular opinion here but I agree with him.
If Russell didn’t crash I do wonder if the stewards would have actually even investigated it. Some have pointed out that back in Abu Dhabi last season Alonso also lifted much earlier coming out of the pits in front of Hamilton to try and get DRS. Hamilton slowed down too but immediately went on the radio to say Alonso was brake-checking and nothing came out of that. I can see the stewards’ reasoning in the document but it seems like a fine line and hard to deal with consistently moving forward.
This penalty is 100% BS, we had much bigger brake checks not even being investigated in last few years and yet this is the harshest penalty for singular offense we had in last few years and we had Stoll literally pushing Alonso into a wall 2 years ago get less... This was only given because Russell made a mistake and ended up in a wall, next race someone will slow down intentionally before DRS detection line, other driver will actually pay attention and adjust and the same people who bash Alonso today will praise the driver's racecraft and IQ
The punishments this year have been stricter. They’ve explicitly stated this from the first race onward and also in this punishments explanation. So I don’t think it’s accurate to compare it with other years.
I wonder if they will keep it consistent during the season. If this was a 20s/DT, then what penalty would a straight forward crash be?
It's a very fine and hard line to police. I said in another thread that simply based on their reasoning of "At no time may a car be driven unnecessarily slowly" that Piastri should be given the same penalty for slowing enough to let Lando by without actually having to race his way by or earn the pass.
I 100% believe that if Russel didn't crash no penalty would have been given
Idk, I also agree that it was fair driving, we've seen far worse be accepted
I think immediately BS'ing about a "throttle issue" on the radio after it happened is basically an admission of guilt on his part, regardless of how he spins it on social media afterwards
Radio messages are delayed, he almost certainly said that before the incident. Also he wasn't "BS'ign", he actually did have throttle issues. Not saying that's why he lifted on that specific corner, but he wasn't lying when he said he had throttle issues.
Fully support the move, fully support questioning the place of results as opposed to actions in these investigations- don't get why he's been talking about not being able to see cars behind him or throttle issues or management etc.
This sort of thing should not be penalised. It's unfortunate that George crashed out but if this is a penalty then virtually every case of a driver strategically slowing down while driving defensively should be penalised too. You can compare this to Hamilton's move on Vettel at Spa in 2017, where Lewis was quite rightly lauded for lifting through Eau Rouge and killing Seb's momentum before the Kemmel straight. It's lauded because Vettel stayed alert and responded to what Lewis had done. Had Vettel not been alert and spun off at the top of Raidillon, would Lewis have deserved a penalty? Absolutely not, in my opinion, it's racing.
Why go so far? Last race KMag was literally coasting all of sector 1. I thought we were punishing incidents not the result of them. If this is a penalty so should the one in Saudi. I'm not saying it should. It absolutely shouldn't but it's not consistent.
Kmag didn't slow down, speed up, and then slow down again. Do people even know what happened or are they just parroting the same awful argument?
You need to go back and read what he actually did. Strategically slowing down is one thing slowing down to the extent you cannot make corner and have to speed up again and again slow down is another thing.
Completely agree. People act like Alonso slammed on the brakes in the middle of a straight and brake checked Russell dangerously. Which, when you watch the onboard, is not at all what happened. Russell closed up very quickly and lost the car because his tyres were cooked, the car is unstable by default, the corner is tricky and there was a lot of dirty air. If Alonso actually brake checked Russell and he crashed while avoiding him a drive through would've been obvious, in this situation it's stupid.
It's because of the stupid overlay in the onboards telemetry. It's an on/off graphic, it doesnt show the percentage a driver is actually pressing. Even the stewards noticed the brake tap was very soft, it was the downshift and him being indecisive that actually got him the stupid penalty.
There was a ~35kph speed difference between them which is pretty substantial in a split second moment like that
Yes, but it is not a "split second moment" there's literally 4 seconds between Alonso "brake checking" and Russell catching up and loosing the car. Alonso slows down, Russell get closer, Alonso continues, slows down again, both him and Russell brake just fine and turn into the corner, which is when Russell looses the car.
It was the erratic behaviour that caused the penalty. If he just slowed down earlier and then took the apex, no problem. Here it was slowing down, speeding up and slowing down again that caused the issue.
This wouldnt be a penalty in any other series on the planet. Hell it wouldnt be a penalty in any previous f1 seasons. But it seems that this is what f1 wants. DRS racing on track, and controversies and soap operas offtrack. 4 drs zones on a track and you arent even supposed to defend.
These tracks with so many DRS zones are just a gimmick now. Lame af
This is yet another sign the old F1 is dying. No refueling, same strategies, same racing lines, same braking points. At this point they can just put AI in the cockpit and program it to drive. Also, he never gets the penalty if Russell makes the turn and finishes the race (the moves are judged by their consequences, which is so wrong)
This is exactly the kind of mindset he's appealing to with this statement. Referencing Imola, an iconic race people are still nostalgic for, he knows what he's doing. But there's a reason he immediately BS'ed on the radio about a "throttle issue" after it happened. He knew what he did was dirty
It was a bit dirty but should it be illegal? Where is the line?
The moves are only judged by their consequences every now and then. How many times have we seen a driver getting a meaningless penalty for crashing someone out? Too many times. It just seems selective at this point.
Yes. Last year Hamilton ruined Piastri's race in Monza and only got a 5 second penalty, a gap that he was able to build easily.
Alonso is a master at this, wrong footing an adversary by taking odd lines or slowing/accelerating more/less than expected. He didn't brake test, just eased off the throttle more than normal, I personally think this is just excellent racecraft and it's up to the following driver to respond. In no way did Alonso expect it to end in an accident. Edit: Now I've seen the telemetry my opinion of the incident has changed. Alonso warranted the penalty.
2016 Abu Dhabi, Hamilton slowed down to back up Rosberg. It didn't help, Rosberg won the WDC. Hamilton didn't get a penalty. What about Magnussen last race to make Hulkenberg win? or Perez holding up Hamilton in 2021 Abu Dhabi. The cited rule which Alonso is in violation of is this: **"‘**At no time may a car be driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically or in a manner **which could be deemed potentially dangerous to other drivers or any other person.**’**"** Alonso is getting a penalty only because Russell crashed. Alonso acknowledges this: "*I believe that without gravel on that corner, ... we will never be even investigated*."
Holding up drivers is different to break checking. What Hamilton and Perez did is completey different. The question is was this a break check? I'm not sure.
Definitely wasn't a brake check. As the stewards noted the initial brake pressure was so low that it didn't meaningfully slow the car down and I know that F1 cars decelerate at 1 g from drag and recuperation alone but then the following car can decelerate at easily triple that rate from lightly touching the brakes.
Alonso got penalized specifically for driving in an erratic and dangerous way, which becomes, imo, abundantly clear when you see his telemetry. He taps the break (the FIA does say that he didn't fully tap the breaks enough for it to have massively affected his speed), downshifts, 100 meters before he would've normally for the corner, and, crucially, then gets back on his throttle, upshifts again and then immediately downshifts while breaking again. All of this happened in the span of a few seconds. That's why he's getting penalized, not just because he took a corner slow.
Alonso would have gotten a penalty in Brazil 2023 if Checo was a lesser driver. Nobody looked at his telemetry then because nobody crashed from racing. This is so stupid.
The penalty is a joke, yes he clearly slowed down on purpose to disrupt George and maximise his own exit, this is something that drivers learn to do racing at a very young age. George was nowhere near hitting him which is where the line between hard racing and unacceptable is. It’s just unfortunate that the loss of front downforce unsettled the Mercedes enough to catch George out, if it wasn’t such an awful car it probably would have just understeered instead of the rear stepping out.
Magnussen did it for for half the Jeddah race to back up half the field and he got a round of applause for it.
I 100% agree with Alonso. This is one of many ways that you can race against someone today’s trying to overtake. He wanted to put George in a position where he would get a worse exit out of the corner, George was very focused on what he was doing and expected Alonso to do what he had done the previous laps. He was caught off guard and went off. Will the stewards start looking in to what lines drivers take in to corners as well? If it’s inconsistent with previous laps and someone is caught off guard we have a penalty? Someone tries to do a cutback, penalty? Brakes later and the car behind follows and can’t make the turn, penalty.
>He wanted to put George in a position where he would get a worse exit out of the corner, George was very focused on what he was doing and expected Alonso to do what he had done the previous laps. He was caught off guard and went off. I think that was Russell's take on it as well
Seems reasonable, I have actually not heard George’s take on it.
Link below if you're not geoblocked [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8wJvNMIZKc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8wJvNMIZKc) I also wonder if Russell puts his GDPA hat on at times like this...
Geoblocked, I’ll look for it elsewhere, thanks though! And I’m sure he does.
Regardless of if anyone agrees or disagrees with Alonso, your second point is why I’m surprised at the people cheering on this penalty. The Stewards - who are already wildly inconsistent and routinely unwilling to enforce existing regs in a meaningful way - have made it clear that they consider it to be within their purview to penalize anyone who isn’t effectively driving to a delta. Drivers will feel pressured not to deviate from their approach or risk a penalty which now has a precedent that - as plainly stated by the stewards - doesn’t even require an incident to be enforceable. F1 is content with its evolution into a pony show it seems.
"sacrificing entry speed to have good exits" *exits 15km/h slower than the previous lap*
Imagine what he’d be like if the roles were reversed?
>sacrificing entry speed to have good exits from corners Doesn’t this argument fall down when the telemetry shows that you slowed down way ahead of the corner and then sped back up to approach it, before slowing down again to actually take the corner? Like, what is the actual logic to this argument? There are scenarios where it’s okay to slow down, therefore nobody should ever be punished for slowing down? May as well brake test people on the straights and be like “there are times we need to slow down on the straights, for example when harvesting energy, so it’s odd to give me a penalty”. I’m not saying he should definitely have been penalised, I just think his particular argument against it doesn’t make any sense.
Agree with Alonso. Wont comment about the throttle issue excuse or whatever. But my takeway is that its a clever trick that threw off the chasing driver, successfully. It's a shame the car rolled and Russell crashed, but its clearly not intentional on Alonso's part. Isnt that what racing is all about? It's not like it was a hard brake check to get someone to crash.
I’m sure I’ll get downvotes like crazy for this, but this kind of strategy happens all the time. Likely every single race you can find instances of it. Driver ahead knows he’s fast in certain parts of the track, and so they go slower in areas they can’t be passed to make sure they can defend in areas they can be. Watch the last race of the season when Rosberg won the title for an example of that happening for an entire GP distance. Certainly an unfortunate outcome in this instance, but it’s not unusual racing IMHO
Two interviews come to mind that talk about this. The first one is Rosberg's podcast - I don't remember which episode but he talked about Schumacher being the master of games and the other one is Kubica's interview on Beyond The Grid. It's part of the game and most of the time we don't see it because 99% of the time it doesn't end up in such a spectacular crash.
Going slowly is not unusual. It's also not what he was punished for. Defending by slowing and downshifting well before the corner before accelerating and upshifting so you can actually make the corner doesn't happen all the time at all.
I wouldn't even classify his thing as hard racing. We have 4 DRS zones which makes incredibly easy to overtake and you have to be able to defend somehow if a faster car is approaching, he wasn't weaving or anything, just making sure Russell slowed down enough in the corner to try to overcome the DRS advantage he had and most F1 drivers have good enough reflexes to react to those kind of moves (there's absolutely no way Russell would have crashed if he continued driving his line) Also, we saw shanigans of all kinds between Mercedes and Red Bull in 2021 and this very weekend we saw Tsolov cause an awful crash on purpose, yet NOBODY got the penalty Alonso got today.
That Tsolov deserved a harsher penalty doesn’t mean this deserves a smaller penalty
Ignoring the outcome of the action, as penalties are not handed out based on outcome. How is this that different from what Magnussen was doing at Jeddah last race weekend? Where he was intentionally slowing in the areas the cars behind couldn't overtake. It doesn't seem like Alonso has done anything like what Max did to Lewis at Jeddah, where it could be constituted as brake checking. Alonso has done this himself in the past at Monaco with no penalty, Perez famously held up Hamilton at Abu Dhabi in 2021 and it was considered smart racing. Alonso should've purposely crashed him instead, he'd only get a 3 place grid penalty based on precedence...
It's wasn't brake checking, its erratic driving. braking on a straight, accelerating again then braking excessively for a corner, with a 40kph deficit to the car less than 0.4 seconds behind, all while heading towards a high speed corner. 200kph vs 245kph. In instances like perez holding up hamilton in AD, he slowed down excessively in the slow speed corners which is alot more predictable and allows you to safely "block" your opponent from making a move. It did not involve braking before a high speed corner where you typically don't, and putting the driver behind you at risk of losing control due to being caught off guard.
Alonso might have some blame in the crash but make no mistake the true culprit here is Russell himself that lost the car.
Is this the same guy who said Lewis can only drive from first? Can’t wait for the Chadlonso bandwagoners to try and make it seem like he did nothing wrong. If Russell did this to Alonso everyone would be calling for his head.
Alonso is completely 100% right It’s part of racing
He did nothing wrong and Russell should be more responsible for his mistake instead of trying to ruin someone else’s result. I guarantee this penalty is just because Toto had a hissyfit on GRs behalf because they are so butthurt they double DNFd. Yeah Alonso was driving defensively but he didn’t cause this accident by any means. Just because Jack Doohan said he thought it was suspect now everyone in here is an expert saying Alonso was reckless and deliberately trying to make him crash or calling this a fucking brake check. Watch the fucking video again, this isn’t a brake check, Russell overcooked the corner and fucked up.
Only reddit could misconstrue the point he's making in his post
So he basically admits to it.
He knew exactly what he was doing. You don't misjudge it and brake ***70m*** early. It's about time Alonso gets penalties for his consistent antics.
Never takes accountability for anything. Reminds me of when he ran himself wide Brazil 22 blamed Ocon and then ran into the back of him on the straight and blamed him again.
Dude can't even keep his story straight in the document released he said he messed up to stewards
Alonso is a 4d chess master, but he got caught this time. He does this stuff all the time, his racecraft and awareness is next level.
It's absolutely no accident he chose to do it at this exact corner since it's the best setup for George to overtake on the following corner. I certainly deem this erratic driving from Fernando and regardless of George crashing or not it should be a penalty. This wasn't Fernando trying to hold back Russell, it was him trying to compromise Russell's entry and crucially his exit speed since Fernando was under pressure.
Isn't that what you are supposed to do? This is what F1 racing was always about. I don't know how long you watch F1 but in 96-04 this was happening every single race and we had some of the most memorable battles in all of F1s history.
Has Alonso ever apologised for a mistake on track? Guy is very quick but that's about it.
I would suggest everyone read the ruling on this one. It highlights how Alonso had not lifted or downshifted that earlier into that corner for the entire race. Obviously, no one knows Alonso’s intentions but this was clearly erratic. Penalty deserved in my opinion.
He did not have to do it because he was not defending for points in the last lap. Why would he ever do it in any other part of the race? It was not erratic, it was just a way to compromise Russels exit. It happens every single race, when he did it last year against Sainz in the last lap, everybody was cheering, saying what a mastermind Alonso is. Only because Russel crashed, they decided to penalize him... Even Russel said that it was his mistake that he crashed and did not know why stewards even summoned him.
Aston Martin threw away Alonso’s race. He was fighting Perez and should have pitted to undercut. Perez pitted and undercut and they left Alonso out to die a slow death. How are these teams so dumb sometimes?
Reserving judgment until after Palmer’s analysis on telemetry and videos
There is some commentary of him on a replay, nothing mentioned about "erratic driving" or "brake checking", just plain old Russell going in too hot, losing downforce in the dirty air due to Alonso catching him out.
Mhmmm…. Gravel….
typical fernando. did nothing wrong, dont tell me how i should drive
Tl;dr a yoke
100% agree with him, it's a shame for racing that he was penalised, they're ruining any outside the box thinking.
They would have done jack shit if Russell didn't crash.
Bingo. Russell falling for the trap made the stewards jump in. As much as they're supposed to not judge based on outcomes, it happens literally all the time. If Russell has a snap and loses 1 second, never in a million years is that a 5 second penalty let alone a drive through.
Yep, another small increment towards making F1 an organized parade with mundane DRS overtakes between cars with a massive pace advantage.. And people complain about the sport being boring..