[Auto] Fernando Alonso, after the penultimate red flag: "What a bad rule

[Draeno]

 

The Australian Grand Prix could perfectly well have been a bum if the race management did not intervene, which neutralized the test three times with a red flag, an eventuality that forced the peloton to regroup on the starting grid with all the ceremonial and nerves that this entailed. supposes. Especially controversial was the second stop, motivated by Kevin Magnussen with less than four laps to go, after the Haas Dane mistimed and smashed his car's right-left wheel into the wall, leaving the track littered with rubble. The impossibility of clearing the area with the cars circulating caused the commissioners to come down and decree that the event would be decided in a sprint of only two laps that would start in the conventional way.

The situation evoked the one experienced two years earlier in Baku, where Checo Pérez won a race with just two laps after Max Verstappen disintegrated the tires of his Red Bull in the middle of the straight. Both episodes confirm that a measure such as the red flag, which theoretically seeks to mitigate a dangerous situation, can also generate another that entails even more risk.

The moment of the start is the most tense of all, and even more so when there are only two laps ahead in which you can win a lot and lose more. That is precisely what Fernando Alonso complained about moments after being run over by Carlos Sainz in the first braking of the restart, and which ended with the Asturian on the wall. Luckily for the Aston Martin driver, the scrum that broke out behind him forced him to stop everything again, before the cars had even completed the first sector of the circuit. The regulations clearly sti[CENSORED]te in its article 57.3 that, in the event that a race is suspended, the classification to be taken into account is that of the last official control point. Finally, the FIA decreed that the last two laps take place in formation and behind safety, maintaining the order established on the last starting grid, a circumstance that allowed the Oviedo driver to chain his third consecutive podium finish.

Regardless of the result, which left some more satisfied than others, most of the pilots agreed to criticize that penultimate red flag, considering it excessive and counterproductive due to the power to generate the chaos that a restart from a standstill after a few turns brings. of the checkered flag. "That damn rule!" Alonso exploded on the radio, while trying to rejoin the line after being hit by his colleague's Ferrari. “You put out a red flag for safety, but you start with a warm-up lap behind the safety car, which is going very slowly. Thus, you create more danger than anything else," the two-time world champion with Renault (2005 and 2006) later reasoned, exonerating Sainz for what had happened: "With cold tires you won't crash into anyone."

Despite this, the man from Madrid received a five-second penalty that dropped him to 12th position. "It is the most unfair penalty I have ever seen in my life," said Sainz, who preferred not to make any other comment than that before going to the offices to ask for explanations.

Esteban Ocon classified several of his rivals as "suicides", in particular allusion to Nyck de Vries, for how he got into the first corner. "Obviously in those situations you have a lot to gain, but it may be too much for depending on which pilots," said the Frenchman from Alpine.

George Russell, for his part, was another of those who was most critical of the FIA's decisions. The Briton, who led the first stage of the test, abandoned (turn 18) after breaking the engine of his Mercedes, when he had already been affected by a first red flag that took the lead from him, following Alex Albon's spin in the lap nine. “That red flag was completely unnecessary. I don't quite understand what is happening with some decisions that are being made. We are all working together with the FIA to improve things, but it is becoming quite a challenge”, denounced the boy from Norkolf, who also holds the position of director of the Pilots Association (GPDA).

 

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