Fernando Alonso’s controversy against the FIA shows no signs of abating. After the sprint qualifying of the Miami GP which he closed with the eighth time behind his teammate Lance Stroll, the Spaniard from Aston Martin attacked the weekend format, branding it as “useless”. An attack which, however, is part of a broader moment of tension between the two-time world champion and the Federation, which over the weekend in Florida was enriched by a further episode: Aston Martin had in fact presented a request for a review of the penalty received by Alonso after contact with Carlos Sainz in the Sprint Race of the Chinese GP, but in Miami the request was ultimately rejected by the commissioners because, despite the presence of “new evidence” brought by the team’s lawyers, the elements presented by the English team were not found to be relevant and significant enough to push the judges to change the initial decision.
USELESS SPRINT
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So Fernando – it was predictable given that the “Right of Audit” instrument historically never leads to a different judgment of merit – had to keep the sanction of three points on the FIA Super License and a ten second penalty at the end of the last race sprint. A situation that has evidently exacerbated the Spaniard’s stomach ache, who already after Melbourne had complained a lot about being held responsible for having triggered George Russell’s dangerous accident on the penultimate lap of the race. “We’ll see what can happen – said Alonso at the end of Friday’s mini-qualifying – and what we can learn in the race, but I think that the sprint is useless like this”.
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ALONSO ATTACKS
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The 42-year-old, who recently signed a multi-year contract to end his career at the wheel of Aston Martin, then justified the criticism of the new format: “There are few points up for grabs and in any case they don’t give us the chance to compete because they continue to penalize us for everything we do. So I imagine that, for those watching from the outside, it will be a boring day since we will have a long train of cars. But at least we will be able to gather some useful information for Sunday’s GP, given that we haven’t done any race simulation and that the Sprint is useless, especially since it’s not possible to fight. We keep getting penalties for everything we do, it’s not going to be an interesting day for me.”
