Monza stewards “made a mistake” with Palmer – Alonso

2017 Italian Grand Prix

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Fernando Alonso says he will speak to the stewards about his dissatisfaction with Jolyon Palmer’s penalty during the Italian Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver repeatedly described Palmer’s five-second penalty during the race as a “joke”. The Renault overtook him after cutting the circuit at the Variante della Roggia.

Speaking in today’s FIA press conference in Singapore, Alonso said he “was not happy with the stewards and the FIA” about the incident.

He confirmed he will raise the matter in the drivers’ briefing. “I will talk tomorrow but there is not much to talk,” said Alonso. “I mean, they make a mistake, they know already so there is not much to talk.”

Palmer’s five-second penalty would not have been sufficient to drop him back behind Alonso. However both drivers dropped out before the end of the race. Alonso described Palmer’s retirement due to a transmission failure as “karma” on his team’s radio during the race.

The Renault driver was also given a single penalty point on his licence for the incident.

Palmer said it has been “a bit of tough year” for him so far but “the last two races were much better, even if they didn’t show in the end.”

“The performance has been there or thereabouts, so hopefully the car will be better on these tracks and we can finally get some points.”

“Every time something happens we are finding out why, learning from it and we keep getting different problems,” he added. “But hopefully we have put a stop to that now and I think the car is going to be strong, especially in these next few races.”

2017 Italian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    25 comments on “Monza stewards “made a mistake” with Palmer – Alonso”

    1. Alonso will keep talking about Palmer until 2021.

      1. He was talking about Brazil 2012 yellow lights in 2016 so, yes

      2. Alonso hater? They asked him about the incident, he just answered.

    2. Well, I guess Palmer also took up his issue with Alonso’s actions and lack of penalty from Spa at the next race, so fair play I suppose, and so maybe I shouldn’t feel like I do, but I really am tired of hearing Alonso complain, and this seems like such a relatively minor thing to keep harping on.

      Also, the more he goes on about Karma, the more I think he should consider whether, and how, it maybe somehow applies to his consistently wrong choices of when to chance teams, and where to, since 2007, culminating in these three very tough McLaren-Honda years.

      1. A yoke!
        :D

    3. “The Stewards know already” (that they made a mistake) “so there’s not much to talk about”. So why is he complaining to the Stewards then? Quite honestly, this is not only arrogant it’s a complete waste of time. The problem was compounded by Alonso being so slow, even with the 5 second penalty Palmer stayed ahead. I (normally) like his driving talents but he is so full of his over inflated sense of entitlement he makes following him extremely hard work..

      1. Clarification for the future.

    4. Alonso is right to highlight this, its a broken system. For example, If Vettel passed Hamilton in this manner then won a race by over 5 seconds, nullifying the penalty, there would be an uproar resulting in threads on this site having 100’s of comments.

      1. I am sorry but I can’t help but keep getting the feeling he is just whining about is. This way of punishing of track overtakes has been going on for at least 2 years. And now that it happens to him, he makes a lot of noise about it? I would have taken him more serious if he had done that 1 1/2 years ago when it happened to someone else.

      2. @emu55: You’re right. To punish an illegal overtake with a time penalty is worthless. The only reasonable punishment is to give the trackposition back and have to wait a full lap after that to try again. Then things can happen, like a DNF of the driver, who should have trackposition back, but then I think it should benefit the next driver down the line. It is totally stupid that a very fast driver can play the rules by betting that even if he can’t get past legally, then he can pull out a larger gap than the punishment for doing it not so legal. This is not about the Alonso vs. Palmer incident, it is about fair rules.

    5. Considering Vettel only got a 10-second penalty for deliberately colliding with Hamilton, which also wasn’t enough to drop him behind him I don’t see how the stewards could have given Palmer a higher penalty than 5-seconds.

      I don’t think that penalty was sufficient for Vettel, but given the die was cast the Monza stewards were just being consistent.

      1. That was a 10 second stop-and-go, which is basically a 30 second penalty, give or take. They can’t be served in a normal pit stop.

        1. Good point

      2. @philipgb

        which also wasn’t enough to drop him behind him

        Had Lewis not had the headrest issue he likely would have won the race with Vettel 35-40+ seconds behind him in 5th.

        Hamilton having the issue with the headrest is the only reason he ended up behind Vettel after Vettel served his penalty & Lewis having that issue isn’t something the stewards could or even should have taken under consideration when deciding on Vettel’s penalty.

        1. @stefmeister

          And the only reason the 5-second penalty wasn’t enough to land Palmer behind Alonso is because the McLaren is so slow Alonso couldn’t keep within 5 seconds of him.

          1. @philipgb: Ok, in the specific incident, alonso’s mclaren was indeed so slow that palmer built enough of a gap, but think about verstappen, did he really have to take that risk with massa if the penalty is 5 sec no matter what? Wait 20 sec, cut that chicane, gain 3-4 sec, get past massa, then naturally his car will build enough advantage to come out ahead when he pits. This isn’t fair overall, I really wouldn’t blame drivers for cutting chicanes in the way I said if this rule isn’t changed.

    6. What should have happened is the team should have forced Palmer to instantly give it back. Palmer did actually back off after he had cut the corner and Alonso did almost pull fully along side. But Palmer’s move did end up resulting in an overtake. It will have been a bit much to give him more of a penalty that actually had some affect at the end as he will have had to be given some penalty points or a penalty for the next race which just seams unreasonable. He will have very likely got past within the next 2 laps anyway so I don’t understand why Alonso is fussing quite as much as he is. The way to fix this is so simple and that is as I said in my first sentence.

      What I do think was unreasonable was the fact that Alonso didn’t even get investigated for what he did to Palmer in the previous race. Palmer attempted an overtake and did indeed push Alonso wide. There was no artificial grass here. Alonso did go a bit wider than he needed to. But then, Alonso pushed Palmer onto the artificial grass on the other side. Palmer had to go as far off the track as he did or he will have contacted Alonso. Then in the next corner, Alonso forced Palmer right off onto the artificial grass again and Palmer was fully along side. This cost Palmer a bit of time and it could have resulted in a spin and a crash. How was this not investigated? This to me something the stewards made a strange decision with. If they investigated Verstappen and Magnussen last race, then why didn’t they investigate Alonso and Palmer this time? Do drivers really need to create a huge fuss to get the stewards attention like Magnussen did?

      I think that although it probably won’t have resulted in anything, the 5 second penalty was the most they could do without it being rather unfair on Palmer if he had continued. They should force drivers to give it back instantly if they gain a position by cutting the corner and if they refuse to give it back after being asked several times, it is then that they should get given a very harsh penalty.

      1. Completely lack of consistensy. Giving position back did not help Mag when he was pushed of by Ocon and returned in front, giving pos back, got both seconds and points, as the early overtake of Vandorne just before line, also giving pos back, still Mag got seconds +points, and penalty as well with Hul similar to this Alo push of Pal. Stewards are really not consistent wse, you never know what is incident and what is to be penalty!

      2. when palmer was trying to overtake Alonso in spa, he did get fully alongside at one point but not ahead. so Alonso gets entitlement to the racing line. if palmer got ahead by say half a car length then he dictates and is entitled to the racing line and Alonso has to give him space. palmer simply wasn’t ahead so probably should have backed off rather than go off the track.

        We’ve seen Hamilton do it loads of times.

        now what Magnussen did by going way off the racing line and forcing hulkenburg off is bad driving because he left the racing line for the sole purpose of forcing the other guy off the track. this is not the case with Alonso and Hamilton’s moves

    7. I saw the interview. Alonso has clearly moved on – one of the media brought it up obviously to stir the pot and
      judging from the attention it is getting here I can see he succeeded.
      I’m surprised Keith is wasting space/time on this rubbish.

      1. Alonso took issue with the inference that his complaint had been about Palmer, rather than about the stewards. He did not say he had “moved on”. He was asked directly if he would raise the matter in the drivers’ meeting and he said he would, which is what the article relates.

    8. Jesus, he’s acting like no driver has ever cut a corner before… why does he hate Palmer so much?

    9. Journalists are constantly stirring the pot when an incident happens. Even weeks later when everyone except them has moved on they just harp on an issue until maybe their wives tell them to stop. :-) Clearly they have nothing of substance to ask the drivers most of time. That might be the fault of boring races but still.

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