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Alonso claims Spanish drivers being treated differently by FIA
Fernando Alonso has claimed Spanish drivers are being treated differently by the FIA after a lack of a penalty for Lewis Hamilton at the Miami Grand Prix.
Hamilton attacked Alonso down the inside of Turn 1 at the start of the sprint, arriving quickly with Alonso having already made contact with teammate Lance Stroll just before the Mercedes pulled alongside. Stroll was then knocked into Lando Norris who was taken out of the race, and speaking after the Sprint had finished Alonso told Spanish broadcaster DAZN he expected the stewards to make a call based on nationality.
“I’m sure they won’t decide anything [against Hamilton] because he’s not Spanish,” Alonso said. “But I think he ruined a lot of people's races, especially Norris -- who has a very fast car.”
The stewards opted to take no further action, citing the three separate collisions as one of the factors in that decision.
“From the video evidence, it appeared that there were at least three collisions that occurred – the first between cars No. 14 (Alonso) and No. 18 (Stroll) and then between car No. 44 (Hamilton) and car No. 14 and finally between car No. 18 and car No. 4 (Norris).
“While it appeared to us that the incidents began with cars No. 14 and No. 18, the sudden and fast arrival of car No. 44 contributed to the various collisions. However, we were not able to identify one or more drivers wholly or predominantly to blame for the various collisions or any one of them.
“Also keeping in mind that this was in Turn 1 of lap one where greater latitude is given to drivers for incidents, we took no further action.”
When that outcome was then put to Alonso after qualifying had finished, he maintained his stance that nationality plays a part in penalties.
“I have to open the gap because Hamilton was coming from the inside without control of the car, so if I do that for sure I get the penalty.
“I do feel that nationality matters, and I will speak with Mohammed [Ben Sulayem], with the FIA, whatever… I need to make sure there is not anything wrong with my nationality or anything that can influence any decision, not only for me also for the future generation of the Spanish drivers. They need to be protected.”
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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