Fernando Alonso received a second penalty of five seconds after the race in Miami which caused him to lose two points, he fell from ninth to eleventh place, for skipping a corner. The incident was discussed two hours after the race, the driver went to Alan Permane, Alpine’s sports manager. AS asked Fernando about the event, and his opinion about it, at the press conference for the Spanish GP, this Friday in Barcelona, and the two-time champion did not shy away from euphemisms: “Unfair, lack of professionalism.”
“It was unfair, we think it was very unfair, incompetence of the stewards. They were not very professional in Miami, I missed a corner and then I gave back all the lap time, but when you miss a corner you see the gain in the sector. They took the decision without asking for evidence, we took the evidence after the race with the time we returned but they were not even in the room, they were collecting. We asked them for five minutes, but they could no longer reverse the penalty. It was really bad, honestly. It is already the past, but… it is something that cannot happen in Formula 1, with the professionalism and standards that Formula 1 has,” was the full response of the Asturian driver.
He also left an unflattering comment for Niels Wittich, race director at the first five grands prix. “We’ve seen a couple of things already, we have to improve a lot. In racing you need experience and knowledge about racing before being a race director. I don’t think that knowledge is in place right now. I know that here (in Barcelona) there is a new race director and Freitas has more experience in the WEC and other categories at the highest level. That will prove it. After Carlos and Esteban’s accident in Miami we asked for Tec-pro barriers, and nobody did anything. When you don’t have that knowledge about racing, it’s hard to talk.”
