Alonso sides with Verstappen over Russell incident

Dec.3 (GMM) Fernando Alonso seems to agree with Max Verstappen about his one-place grid penalty that cost him pole position in Qatar at the weekend.

The quadruple world champion said he had “lost all respect” for the way George Russell argued to the stewards that the Red Bull driver should be punished for driving too slowly on a cool-down lap.

Dutch GP boss and former F1 driver Jan Lammers likened the Mercedes driver’s argument to “a dive in football”.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner was asked whether he thinks it was another case of supposed pro-British bias by FIA officials. “No,” he insisted.

“I think it was purely a result of George’s hysteria. He was already quite hysterical this weekend,” said Horner. “Unfortunately, there was not much sportsmanship to be seen in this case.

“It was just a very strange decision if you look at the circumstances, because both cars were doing a slow lap. It felt like George and Mercedes were blowing it out of proportion.”

But Tom Coronel, a Dutch racing driver and personality, thinks Verstappen’s reaction was also tactical. “He wants to get into Russell’s head now,” he told Viaplay.

“He wants Russell to realise that if he p*sses Max off, Max will get him back. Not once, but twice or three times, because ‘I decide everything now and you decide nothing at all’.”

As for F1 veteran Alonso, he seems to imply that that Russell played a role in creating the incident in the first place.

“Maybe I’ll accelerate towards my rival on my warm-up lap in Abu Dhabi and ask for him to be punished,” the two-time world champion told Spanish reporters.

“Max was driving slowly, but George was also on a slow lap. So when I drive a slow lap in Abu Dhabi, I will push like an idiot to create a penalty. We need to pay attention to that now,” added the Spaniard.

However, Alonso said he actually thinks the new race director Rui Marquez has done a good job since Niels Wittich was suddenly fired ahead of the Las Vegas GP.

“He had to control F1 Academy, F2 and F1 in the same weekend and did a good job,” said the Aston Martin driver. “So I’m happy about that.”