In the sprint race on Saturday, Alonso got a 10-second penalty for bumping into Carlos Sainz from Ferrari near the end of the race. This made Alonso stop because his tire got punctured.
The next day, Stroll got a similar penalty. He crashed into the back of Daniel Ricciardo’s car while the safety car was out. This crash damaged Ricciardo’s car so much that he couldn’t continue, and it also hurt Oscar Piastri’s McLaren.
Krack, from Aston Martin, thought that Stroll’s penalty was “very harsh” and said that the stewards have been tough on Alonso and Stroll lately. He brought up Alonso’s penalty in Australia where he braked very early for a turn. This made George Russell crash because he didn’t expect Alonso to brake so soon.
“We had it in the sprint race, we had it in Melbourne, we had with Lance [here],” Krack said. “Last time it was the car in front that got the penalty [Alonso] in Melbourne, even without touching. This time, it was the car behind.”
Krack talked about how Stroll didn’t get a penalty in Bahrain when Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg spun him around on the first lap.
“Lance gets spun around in Bahrain in lap one, has to come back through the field – there’s no penalty for the one that caused the collision,” he said. “So, again, we’re not super consistent. That’s the feeling.”
Krack also mentioned that people might think Alonso and Stroll are getting harsher penalties because of their reputations. When asked if he thinks Alonso and Stroll are treated unfairly because of this, Krack said that it’s possible.
“We had action! I thought it was great racing, even if we had the worst end of it. And then spending hours with the stewards again… you feel at that point that it is not fair.”
“Maybe we sleep two nights, and we’ll see it differently. But again, you have an incident [in the race] where people are pushing another car off in Turn 6, and then there is no action.”
“Or we had the two Ferraris pushing one another off, not leaving the gap – there was no action. Fernando? Straight away 10 seconds…”
