Alonso judged “totally at fault” after contact with Ocon

Although he took out the sulphate against his teammate in his radio then in the mixed zone, Fernando Alonso failed to escape the penalty. The Spaniard was in fact penalized for hitting his French teammate from behind on the start straight.

After coming close to disaster for the first time at turn 4 in the first lap, the double world champion, present in the slipstream of the Normand in the straight a few laps later, was slow to disengage and was judged guilty of the contact.

“Alonso began overtaking car 31 at turn 15, it was noted in the official race management document. The team noted thatOr with was abnormally slow due to aerodynamic damage linked to the Turn 4 incident, however the stewards determined by telemetry that Ocon was traveling at speeds similar to those of other cars not benefiting from aspiration.

Ocon will start 17th, Alonso 18th

“Alonso, however, was significantly faster in the slipstream and – as he admitted in court – slightly misjudged the moment to swerve to the right and hit Ocon from behind, his front wing hitting the rear tire from Ocon.” From then on, the stewards considered that Alonso was fully responsible for the collision while noting the potential dangerousness of the incident due to the location and speeds involved. 

The Spaniard, 15th in the sprint race, therefore received a five-second penalty, which caused him to lose two positions and allowed Ocon to move up to 17th place. He will therefore start from 18th place on the grid on Sunday, just behind his French teammate, so... with another hot first lap on Sunday during the Grand Prix? Note that the Asturian Bull also received two penalty points on his license, which now gives him a total of 6 points out of the 12 possible. 

« We are extremely disappointed with the result of this Sprint race, which places us in a less good position on the starting grid for tomorrow's Grand Prix., regretted Otmar Szafnauer, team principal Alpine.

We are involved in a very tight fight for fourth place in the Manufacturers' Championship, a goal for which more than 1 people are working tirelessly.

Frankly, Esteban and Fernando must do a better job to realize the fantastic efforts made by the whole team by avoiding these kinds of incidents on the track and compromising the team's result. Today, both drivers let the team down. I expect more from them tomorrow ».

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