As Liam Lawson and Fernando Alonso fought on track during the sprint race, the Spaniard labeled his rival’s behavior “unnecessary.”
Later on, Lawson also revealed that the two-time world champion told him that he would “screw” him after what had happened. Alonso kind of did that during qualifying as he made the RB F1 Team driver lose time.
The New Zealander did not understand why Alonso was so mad, as they weren’t even fighting for points. Moreover, despite what happened, Lawson doesn’t believe he and Alonso are now rivals, and hopes that the Spaniard “can get over it and move forward”.
“I don’t know, he said he would screw me, and I guess he kept his word,” Lawson said, referring to what happened in qualifying.
“He was really upset, I’m not sure why. We were racing for P16 and I don’t know why he was so upset. Yeah, I don’t know. It is what it is. Hopefully, he can get over it and we’ll move forward.
“Just out of the box playing games. It is what it is, it’s part of it – it doesn’t bother me.”
Lawson thinks that frustration might have played a role in why Alonso was so upset, as the Aston Martin driver struggled pace-wise.
“I understand he had a pretty horrible race so I can understand why he’s upset. But if I did anything wrong I’d have got a penalty. So, yeah…”
Meanwhile, Alonso didn’t want to comment on what happened, sharing that “that is between us”. Then, the Spaniard added that the two of them avoided a crash just thanks to the fact that he lifted off, otherwise things might have ended up differently.
“And you know, as long as one of the two cars lifts off, there is never an accident. So it was my case today.
“On the straight, I think we nearly crashed, like I did with Lance [Stroll] two years ago, at 300-something [km/h], and then the way he squeezed, out of the corners, you know, to the track limit itself. You know, in lap one out of 11.
“But as I said, I don’t want to make a big thing. There’s, of course, no penalty when someone lifts off in 16/17 – that was probably the biggest surprise.”