Alonso got a 10-second penalty during the sprint race and got three penalty points on his racing license because he bumped into Carlos Sainz in Saturday’s race.
They were battling for third place when they crashed at Turn 9. This caused Alonso’s tire to burst, and he had to leave the race. Sergio Perez benefited from this and finished in the top three.
The stewards decided to punish Alonso for not driving properly, but Alonso doesn’t agree that it was his fault.
“At Turn 7, we were equally matched. Then, at Turn 8, I tried to go on the outside,” he said after the sprint race. “But he blocked me, so at Turn 9, I did the same thing he did at Turn 8.
“I tried to stay on the inside to give him less space, but at Turn 8, I moved away so we didn’t crash. However, at Turn 9, he didn’t do the same, so we crashed.”
Now, Alonso’s team needs to give new evidence to the stewards to think about changing their decision. They will have a meeting on May 3 with the team managers from Aston Martin and Ferrari. They will decide if the new evidence from Aston Martin is important enough for the stewards to think again.
“The meeting will have two parts,” the stewards wrote. “The first part is to hear if there is new and important evidence that wasn’t available when the decision was made.
“If the stewards think there is such evidence, they will have another meeting later. Other teams involved can also ask to join this meeting if they want.”
