Fernando Alonso has dismissed Formula 1 peer Alex Albon’s suggestion that his visit to the Turn 15 escape road in Baku qualifying was in any way intentional or tactical.
Alonso went into the escape road in question during his final lap in Q1, bringing out yellow flags that prevented Williams driver Alex Albon – right behind him – from finishing his flying lap.
It came as part of the hectic late charge in Q1 after the restart following the red flag brought out by Lance Stroll shunting his Aston Martin.
Alonso was 11th at the time of the red flag and finished 11th, while Albon was in the elimination zone and had to settle for 17th on the grid after being unable to improve.
“He needs to get penalised, this guy, he has to! This is ridiculous. He was doing it the whole lap, he was driving slowly on purpose,” Albon ranted on the radio, clearly in reference to Alonso, before adding: “He was so obvious how he went off the track, he braked so early and then he just went off the circuit.”
Though slightly more diplomatic when talking to media after the session, the Anglo-Thai racer stood by what he said.
“I’ll leave it for you to decide. Have a look, and comment later,” he said when asked about the situation, before expressing a desire for an IndyCar-style rule that penalises drivers who cause yellow or red flags in qualifying.
“I just think it would be a good idea if we had a rule change where people who create yellow flags or red flags get their laptimes deleted.
“I know we’ve talked about this previously [most recently in Monaco]. But it doesn’t put any penalty on the driver who makes a mistake, and I think, there are games, of course there are games.
“You reduce the amount of people that can do a lap anyway. But also, create more yellow flags behind you but, obviously, you make it through Q2.
“I’m 99% sure if I didn’t make a mistake at the last corner I would have benefitted from the slipstream I chose to take behind him [Alonso] for the whole lap, and we would have got into Q2.
“It is one of those things. I’m not angry at Fernando, he’s a smart guy and he plays the system well.”
Alonso, for his part, indicated he was sympathetic to Albon’s frustration, but stressed that any suggestion of his off being a deliberate maneouvre was baseless – stressing he had “a lot of rear locking and a lot of rear overheating on the brakes”.
“There was a lot of smoke on the brakes even when I stopped [in the garage],” he said.
He pointed to Sebastian Vettel’s trip into the Turn 15 barrier later on as evidence of how easy it was to get the corner wrong and what the consequences were for not backing out and going into the escape road in time.
“Everyone complains when there is a yellow flag, but I don’t think that today that corner was the easiest corner to negotiate. I went off, yes, I was with the old tyres, yes.
“Sebastian tried to make the corner and touched the wall. The McLarens [were] undecided to make the corner and then they took the escape road as I did.
“I mean, it was a lot of frustration, I think, for everybody at the end of Q1, with two minutes and a half and a queue of 15 cars trying to open the lap. I understand them but for sure it was a mistake that can happen for everyone.”
Keyword: Alonso responds to Albon accusation of ‘playing the system’