Fernando Alonso penalized after contact with Esteban Ocon
The Spaniard received two penalty points on his super license. A five-second penalty was added to his sprint time.
The Alpine/Alonso story ends badly. The Spaniard is leaving the Alpine team in a few days to join Aston Martin. And the final moments are not pleasant for him. Being repeatedly victimized by reliability issues, like in Mexico, has frustrated him.
In Brazil, for the sprint race, Fernando Alonso made contact with his teammate twice. The first collision occurred at turn 4, with the Frenchman squeezing the double world champion.
The second contact had more consequences. The Spanish driver was trying to overtake Ocon on the outside in the straight leading to the pit lane and ended up colliding with the rear tire of the Alpine number 31. The impact caused the rear wing to break.
Summoned to the stewards after the race, the two men were brought in to explain the incident. Fernando Alonso was eventually found guilty.
Alonso started to overtake car 31 at turn 15. The team noted that Ocon was unusually slow due to aerodynamic damage from the incident at turn 4, but the stewards determined through telemetry that Ocon had a similar speed to other cars at the same section of the track that were not being towed. However, Alonso was much faster because he admitted during the hearing that he slightly misjudged the moment to pull out and crashed into Ocon from behind, with his front wing hitting Ocon’s rear tire. The stewards deemed Alonso to be fully responsible for the collision, which at those speeds and at that part of the track was dangerous », confirms a statement from the FIA.
The Spanish driver received two penalty points on his super license, bringing his total to six. His sprint race time was also added by five seconds. He will start 18th, this Sunday, November 13th.
