Fernando Alonso was given a second five-second time penalty following the Miami Grand Prix.
The Alpine driver collected the first penalty during the race for his collision with Pierre Gasly. Afterwards he was given a second for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.Alonso and Gasly made contact at turn one when the Alpine driver tried to pass his rival on the inside of turn one. The stewards ruled “car 14 was not entitled to receive racing room” from Gasly.
Drivers were given updated guidance on the rules of racing prior to the start of the 2022 F1 season. It stated that “in order for a car being overtaken to be required to give sufficient room to an overtaking car, the overtaking car needs to have a significant portion of the car alongside the car being overtaken and the overtaking manoeuvre must be done in a safe and controlled manner, while enabling the car to clearly remain within the limits of the track.”
Alonso received a five-second time penalty during the race which dropped him from eighth to ninth behind his team mate Esteban Ocon. At the end of the race Alpine told Ocon to hold up the cars behind him in order to reduce the number of places Alonso lost.
After the race Alonso was given a second five-second time penalty. The stewards ruled he “left the track at turn 14 and gained a lasting advantage.” He was given a total of three points for the two incidents.
The additional penalty dropped Alonso from ninth place to 11th. Lance Stroll, who originally finished 12th, was therefore promoted to the final points position, Daniel Ricciardo also having been penalised.
The stewards also investigated Alonso for another occasion on which he left the track four minutes later, but decided to take no action.
The stewards decided no action was needed for another collision which occured at turn one, involving Mick Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel.
This article will be updated
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Jere (@jerejj)
8th May 2022, 22:46
Indeed was unentitled. He wasn’t enough alongside, like Albon versus Stroll in SA.
Jere (@jerejj)
9th May 2022, 8:09
So the difference between his two chicken cuts was cutting the gap to the driver ahead & increasing to behind in the former, while both gaps remained roughly the same in the latter.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
8th May 2022, 22:56
That’s odd considering Schumacher on Vettel was just a more extreme version of Alonso on Gasly, but maybe they took into account the fact that Schumacher lost his points finish due to it whereas without the penalty Alonso would have benefitted from his incident.
jff
8th May 2022, 23:02
Indeed, very weird that Schumacher didn’t get a penalty (and points) for that.
Jere (@jerejj)
9th May 2022, 8:06
@f1frog @jff
Indeed. He attempted a divebomb that was doomed to fail from the get-go.
I’m surprised Stewards ruled that as a mere racing incident.
Merv
9th May 2022, 1:29
Penalty points for gaining a lasting advantage? Really?
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
9th May 2022, 1:38
No racing allowed, penalty for everyone!
Mr_NovemberHotel (@nicharvs)
9th May 2022, 2:55
Has alonso given up? It seems like he doesn’t really care. That move was never going to happen, and he complained that gasly left no space. Later “cut the chicken”, didn’t even bother to lift to avoid a penalty. Remember him saying he will quit when someone beats him in the same car, maybe it’s time, Ocon 24-2 Alonso. Yet, he will never admit to it, blame reliability, bad luck. Give piastri his seat. To me it seems Alonso has taken up raikkonens mantle of weekend “its just a hobby” driver now he know the rule change won’t give him a car to win races and el plan has not worked.
Karthik (@kart1131)
9th May 2022, 5:57
Yeah, how dare he can explain his point of view, right? because the engine failure in Jeddah, hydraulic failure in Aus, and Schumacher damaging his car in Imola were all his fault right?
Mr_NovemberHotel (@nicharvs)
9th May 2022, 9:46
Yeah, saudi and Imola I’ll agree with. But Australia, the failure was in qualifying, he still started 10th, yet didn’t show any of that speed in the race, almost as if he didn’t think it was worth it because his podium chance was gone. I don’t know, but he’s not the alonso I remember.
Karthik (@kart1131)
9th May 2022, 11:46
He was the only one who started on the hard tires, a different strategy hoping to capitalize on the mistakes at the later stages of the grandprix. But Vettel spoiled (not blaming him) the plans when he brought out the safety car on lap 24-25. Everybody around him benefited during the safety car period by taking cheap pitstops. How was this his mistake? In my books, it’s super unlucky.
SHR Modding
9th May 2022, 12:34
You only come to these conclusions if you haven’t watched the races and just look at the scoreboard. Alonso has been hands down the faster driver from the get go this season. No questions asked.
Nick T.
9th May 2022, 6:59
What BS. Other drivers had to cut chicanes during the race and didn’t get 5 second penalty. They probably thought he was trying to steal a time advantage, which I HIGHLY doubt. Besides, those other competitors would have been way further back anyway without the safety car.
Alesici
9th May 2022, 8:51
It sounds like the stewards were annoyed by how Ocon was limiting the penalty to Alonso from their 1st penalty, and retrospectively clutch at the corner cutting straw to ensure he was better penalised. Again, to dodge suspicion of this , it’d be nice if the stewards could show show transparency by clarifying where Alonso cut a corner and how much time it saved him.
Sviat
9th May 2022, 11:33
It’s been five races, and I don’t see Alonso being quicker or more stable than Ocon. Even this time, when Alonso had the opportunity to get more points than his teammate, Ocon still beat him after starting last.
Alonso made a lot of mistakes also. His attempt to overtake Gasly from that far behind was very dumb. It’s either the age or the fact that Alpine is very slow and Ocon has 6 times more points is getting to him. Or both.
It’s highly unlikely that Alonso will recover the points gap to Ocon. Alpine can’t go higher than 8th in the race, 6-7 – that’s on a good day when leaders blunder. So Alonso can’t get a good point difference, and he needs to beat Ocon like 10 race straight to get equal. I just don’t see that happening this year.
El Plan doesn’t work.
Gunga
11th May 2022, 15:06
Alonso was quicker in every race, except Bahrain where his car was damaged. Saturdays he looks much quicker, too. Ocon just got lucky from cars retiring ahead of him (Jeddah, Bahrain), or perfect timing of Safetycar deployments (Imola, Miami), while Alonso has no such luck, yet.
Whether or not he beats him, is not as important, as the fact him being much faster compared to last year, which was expected.