(Motorsport-Total.com) – Fernando Alonso feels the five-second penalty imposed on Carlos Sainz at the 2023 Australian Grand Prix may have been “too harsh”, despite being the victim of the Ferrari driver himself in the turn 1/2 collision at the restart was.
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Carlos Sainz was informed of his five-second penalty over the radio during the break
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“The penalty may be too severe,” says Alonso. “On the first lap it’s always very difficult to assess the level of grip and you don’t intentionally crash into another car. You know you’re risking your own car and your result, but sometimes it just carries you in places where you don’t want to go.”
The Aston Martin driver emphasizes that he didn’t see the replay exactly, “but that seems too hard to me. That’s part of racing.”
Sainz drove into Alonso’s car at the restart on lap 57 and was given a five-second penalty. The race stewards stated in their verdict that he was “wholly to blame” for the collision and justified this by saying that Alonso was “significantly ahead” at the time of contact.
For Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur, the situation was not so clear: “You can always discuss accidents like this for hours, but from my point of view it was an accident like the one that happened on the first lap.”
Comparison with Gasly vs. Ocon
Ferrari fans are bothered by the fact that the collision between Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, in which the question of guilt was much clearer for many observers, did not result in a penalty for Gasly. In the verdict, Gasly was explicitly credited with the fact that it was on the first lap following the start that the stewards assessed so-called racing incidents less severely.
However, the Sainz ruling literally says: “In this case it was the equivalent of an incident on the first lap, but we believe that there was sufficient space to take measures that would have prevented a collision.” Sainz did not do that, namely to steer more to the right.
An argument that leaves a smack when compared to the gasly ocon situation. Because Gasly also had enough space not to push Ocon into the concrete wall.
It’s such subtleties that Vasseur would have liked to discuss with the commissioners followingwards. Instead, the penalty was imposed before the race resumed, so the five seconds were added to the race time.
“My frustration comes from the fact that they made the decision before the end of the race, before a possible hearing,” criticized Vasseur. “We knew we only had one lap behind the safety car. It would have made sense to wait until the end of the race and then discuss what they saw.”
“In Saudi Arabia it took them 30 laps to decide whether the jack touched Alonso’s car or not. And today they decide Carlos in five seconds. In a situation like that, we might have taken five minutes, to take a close look at the data,” he says angrily.
Sainz: His radio freak out in the wording
When Sainz was informed by his race engineer Riccardo Adami that he was receiving a five-second penalty, the otherwise calm Spaniard literally freaked out on the radio: “No! That can’t be, ‘Ricci’! You have to wait until the race is over , so that you can analyze the incident with me. You must wait.”
“There’s only ten minutes left. I’ll come up to the commissioners’ room and explain. It’s not like I’m third, it’s fourth. So why do they have to kick me out of the points? That’s it Unacceptable. I can’t accept that. That’s impossible. It’s so unfair. It was a racing accident. Lap 1.”
The logic behind his freak out: Since the positions for the last lap behind the safety car were frozen anyway, Sainz would have been fourth behind Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. A delay in the decision would not have had any impact on the award ceremony, which is important for international TV.
Vasseur therefore asks for your understanding for Sainz’ freak out: “He was unlucky with the pit stop because of the first red flag, but then fought back mega. His pace was very strong and constant. Then he’s not far from the podium – and loses It’s that way, so close to the end. I totally understand his emotion and shock.”
Alonso can laugh regarding it once more
Meanwhile, Alonso can already joke regarding the incident, which had a happy ending for him: “I only had a normal start in Jeddah. In Bahrain, Lance touched me at turn 4. I seem very attractive out there! But ours The car is built robustly and can withstand it. You can keep driving into us!”
Incidentally, the situation on lap 57 was not the first contact between Sainz and Alonso in Melbourne. Already in lap 1, immediately following the first start, the two Spaniards, who also appreciate each other privately, almost had a crash.
Sainz and Alonso approached Turn 3 side-by-side as Sainz sought to slipstream from the Hamilton-Mercedes ahead – and steered into Alonso’s line. Except for a startled twitch of the Ferrari driver to the left, the light touch had no consequences.