Fernando Alonso admitted that he didn’t really agree with the penalty he was inflicted in Australia and despite receiving it, he won’t change his driving style.
The Spaniard was defending his position from George Russell in the dying stages of the Grand Prix. In order to keep him behind and not give the Britton a good exit out of turn 6, Alonso tried to slow Russell down by changing his approach to the corner. However, that caused the Mercedes driver to lose control of the car and crash.
Russell admitted that he was caught off guard, and the FIA decided to penalize Alonso after thoroughly looking at Aston Martin’s telemetry. Alonso later admitted that he was “surprised” by the penalty.
“It was a little bit surprising, the penalty in Melbourne.
“There is nothing we can do, we have to accept it and move on and concentrate on here. But I think it will not change much about how we drive and how we approach racing.
“There is no obligation to drive 57 laps in the same way. Sometimes we get a slower pace, to save fuel, to save tires, to save battery.
“And sometimes we go slow into corners, or into some sectors of the track, to give the DRS to the car behind because that will be a useful tool if the second car behind is at a faster pace.
“All those things are completely normal. And it was, it is, and it will be forever in motorsports. So we had one penalty, probably a one-off, that we will never apply ever again.”
Alonso also added that had Russell not crashed, the matter wouldn’t have even risen. He believes that in other tracks, Russell would’ve managed to safely rejoin right behind him.
“If he was in Abu Dhabi with a run-off area of asphalt or whatever, I think George will rejoin the track a few meters after that and will try to have a go on me on the following lap, or the following straight. And it will not be any problem.”
“It was the hardest penalty of the season in terms of time lap, which is strange, but the fact it got penalized [was the main issue].”