Unlike his teammate Esteban Ocon, Fernando Alonso could not set foot in Q3 of the last classification of the year after having his pluses and minuses with Daniel Ricciardo on the track.
The last classification of the year was not going to get rid of being involved in controversy and related to possible sanctions to change the established order after holding the three rounds of the same, with up to five pilots involved in different investigations that have resulted in different results.
However, the most blatant linked Fernando Alonso and Daniel Ricciardo– After showing enough pace to advance to Q3, Alpine’s man raised his hand to angrily complain that McLaren’s had hindered him on his Q2 lap, clearly affecting his final time.
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Convinced that the FIA would end up sanctioning Ricciardo later after meetings with the stewards, Alonso did not hide his anger as no penalty could return him to Q3. However, the FIA has finally considered that, although Ricciardo’s performance had a ‘impact’ in the return of Alonso, this maneuver cannot be classified as obstruction.
OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION FIA
«This incident shares many common elements with the other incidents of alleged obstruction of qualification. Most of the cars did very slow warm-up laps, which resulted in big speed differences with the cars on fast lap »
“This, combined with the desire of all drivers to establish a gap with the car in front when starting a fast lap, results in situations where one car can have an ‘impact’ on another car that is doing a fast lap. . However, the curators consider this to be different from ‘hindering’ and, in particular, from ‘unnecessarily hindering’ »
«This last point was emphasized by the representative of Daniel Ricciardo’s team. The stewards note that Fernando Alonso’s car was 41 seconds behind Ricciardo’s car at the exit of Turn 14. However, Ricciardo’s car was part of a ‘chain’ of lagging cars (as a result of the double flags yellows at Turn 14) and as a result, Alonso quickly closed the gap with Ricciardo and caught up with him at Turn 16 »
“The stewards have determined that Ricciardo could do nothing to avoid impacting Alonso’s return”