Was the 20-second time penalty given to Fernando Alonso in the Australian Grand Prix justified? The Spaniard found himself in a heated battle with George Russell for sixth place as the race neared its end. Being concerned about the effectiveness of his car’s aerodynamics in the DRS zones at Albert Park, Alonso attempted to brake earlier than usual before turn 6. His goal was to maintain speed, however, Russell was taken by surprise by this move and ended up crashing due to the turbulence caused by Alonso’s car. Hence the drive-through penalty, which added 20 seconds to the Spaniard’s race time.

F1 presenter and commentator, Matt Gallagher was not impressed by the reasoning given by the FIA for the penalty. Going by the FIA’s report, the stewards didn’t take Russell’s crash into account and only looked at the telemetry data to justify that Alonso made a potentially dangerous maneuver on the track. And that’s something that did not sit well with Gallagher.

“When you watch the footage and then you look at the telemetry, perhaps there are two slightly different ways of looking at it because at first glance everyone just assumed oh, George has just lost it on the last lap, a little bit too close to Alonso,” Matt recently said on the Sky Sports F1 podcast. “But the telemetry shows that Fernando braked not once but twice, for a corner.”

“And, it’s so confusing, stewards and investigations, it does frustrate me quite a lot. Because within the report, it says we’re not factoring in the fact that there was a crash. And then I am sat there going, but you wouldn’t be looking at this if there wasn’t a crash. So of course, there is some element of the crash here that they’re looking at that, right?” he implored.

Fernando Alonso claims he did nothing dangerous to deserve the 20-second penalty

The penalty pushed Alonso from sixth to eighth place in the final standings. As a result, his teammate Lance Stroll moved up to sixth, and Yuki Tsunoda advanced to seventh place. Fernando Alonso’s reaction to the penalty was one of disappointment and frustration. He expressed disbelief at the verdict, stating that he didn’t believe his actions were dangerous.

Alonso recounted the circumstances leading up to the incident, explaining that George Russell quickly closed in on him, putting Alonso under pressure to defend his position. He described how Russell remained within the DRS range for several laps, forcing Alonso to push hard to maintain his position. “I wanted to maximize my exit speed from Turn 6 to defend against him. That’s what any racing driver would do, and I didn’t feel it was dangerous,“ Fernando Alonso was quoted by Motorsport.com.

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Later, Alonso took to social media to reiterate his stance on the penalty. He expressed surprise at the penalty, particularly considering his extensive experience in Formula 1. “In F1, with over 20 years of experience, with epic duels like Imola 2005/2006/ Brazil 2023, changing racing lines, sacrificing entry speed to have good exits from corners is part of the art of motorsport.” Alonso also emphasized that drivers don’t operate at maximum capacity every lap due to various factors such as fuel conservation, tire management, and brake preservation. He found it surprising that he was penalized for deviating from a consistent racing approach.

What are your thoughts on the penalty Alonso received? Was it fair for the FIA to not consider Russell’s crash when the crash was the primary reason they looked into the matter in the first place?

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