F1 | Alonso, reprimand and two penalty points for poor management of dubbing

New controversies around Fernando Alonso: also in Suzuka, the pilot of the McLaren he was the protagonist of misconduct under the blue flag regime. If in Sepang, after having hindered Vettel, he was pardoned, in Japan the Asturian did not get away with it: the stewards, in fact, decided to award him the first reprimand seasonal and to assign it two penalty points on Superlicense.

This is the motivation made public by the race commissioners: “Alonso received the indication of the blue flags on his dashboard, furthermore on lap 51 the blue flags were waved between turns 14 and 15. He had also received a light indication relating to the arrival of the leader Lewis Hamilton with over a early lap. Alonso then let Hamilton pass on lap 52 into Turn 11. The drivers were informed during the briefing that, according to the International Sporting Code, they must allow the following car to pass as soon as possible. This means they have to do it regardless of their ongoing battles and Alonso hasn't done that. Alonso signaled during the meeting with the stewards that there had been an opportunity to let Hamilton pass on the starting straight, but then it was no longer possible until Turn 11. The stewards accepted that there were no safe points between Turn 2 and Turn 9 and that this contributed to increasing the time needed to overtake Hamilton. When applying the sanction, the stewards compared this incident with similar ones that have occurred this season and, while acknowledging the violation, considered it to be less serious than others, also because he subsequently left a lot of space to favor Verstappen's dubbing".

Federico Martino