Fernando Alonso, Alpine, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2022

Alonso drops to ninth after penalty for weaving that Bottas called “dangerous”

2022 Canadian Grand Prix

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Fernando Alonso has been given a five-second time penalty for weaving in front of Valtteri Bottas while the pair were fighting for seventh place at the end of the Canadian Grand Prix.

The pair crossed the line separated by three-tenths of a second. Bottas complained about Alonso’s defending on the radio, telling his team: “Check that weaving by the car ahead that was dangerous.”

After scrutinising video footage of the incident and speaking to both drivers, the stewards ruled Alonso had changed his line repeatedly in front of Bottas.

“Between turns 10 and 12, on the penultimate lap of the race, car 14 made repeated changes of direction to defend against car 77 who had to lift at one point and briefly lost momentum.

“Whilst noting the driver’s point that at no stage was any point of car 77 alongside car 14, the stewards consider this to be a clear breach of the above regulation. The stewards therefore impose a five-second time penalty in line with that imposed for a similar incident in Australia 2022.”

Alonso’s penalty elevates both Alfa Romeo drivers, Bottas taking seventh ahead of Zhou Guanyu, while Alonso falls to ninth. He has also been given a penalty point on his licence, putting him on a total of six for the current 12-month period.

The stewards also ruled Sebastian Vettel did not deserve a penalty for failing to stay within 10 car lengths of other drivers during the Safety Car period at the end of the race.

“After initially closing up to the car in front under the Safety Car procedure, for a period of time car five [Vettel] did not maintain the 10-car length rule.

“However, towards the end of the Safety Car period [he] re-closed the gap and then maintained the required position until the race resumption. The stewards also note that there were other drivers who
also failed to keep to the 10-car lengths at different times during the procedure but that all were compliant at the end of the Safety Car period.

“Therefore the stewards conclude that a penalty for car 5 is not appropriate in these circumstances.”

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2022 Canadian 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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21 comments on “Alonso drops to ninth after penalty for weaving that Bottas called “dangerous””

  1. What does it matter, in the racefans driver ratings he’ll still get a solid 10 for being such a hero

    1. well if you look at it with a level head, his strategy was messed up, too no advantage of the first 2 vscs because they were 1 stopping him, then went on to hards, preserving them because they were 1 stopping him and then 2 stopped him anyway. plus he had an engine problem. leclerc passed him with ease whereas he couldn’t pass ocon the same way.

      lots of things went wrong this race for alpine, they need to brush up these things

      1. damn, no edit button! might i add that he was comfortably keeping pace with sainz and pulling away from hamilton in the opening stint before the engine issue hit.

  2. I don’t understand this rule anymore. Today someone weaves down the straight and it’s okay. Tomorrow someone does it, and it is a black and white flag. Next day another driver does it and gets penalised. Very odd.

    1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
      19th June 2022, 23:09

      Today, someone did weave down the straight and got a penalty. Next day, a driver does not get penalised, as there are not 2 races 2 days in a row ;)

      Other than on sprint weekends…

      1. Well, the Sprints aren’t technically races according to the regs, each one is called a ‘sprint session’, so there’s no chance of that either.

    2. Its really funny to watch “stewarding” from what is “pinnacle of motorsport”. Even court Jesters would be more consistent that these.

    3. @spafrancorchamps Sometimes difficult to comment with lack of footage and I believe this is a case of “it depends if the car behind has a real shot at an overtake”, and looking at this one in particular Bottas is close enough and Alonso weaving is preventing making a move on either side. Not surprised about the outcome.

      Here is some footage (if not taken down): https://youtube.com/shorts/Mp2Dmlk7qBs?feature=share

      1. @jeanrien he did leave a space though ;) But I agree, it is worth a penalty. Just wished they would be more consistent at it. Either allow weaving or disallow it.

  3. I’m sure ALO deserves the penalty. BOT on the other hand, screwed LEC by just sitting behind the Williams for 5 or 6 laps. It’s a Williams, the slowest cars on the track and BOT can’t pass with DRS?

    1. old habits and all of that…

      Here’s to Bottas V4.0

      1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        20th June 2022, 8:57

        and Leclerc in a ferrari couldn’t pass an alfa romeo. The mercedes engine seems to be better at the moment (compared to what it was and there was vertually not difference on the straights between albon and Bottas.

        You are speaking as if Bottas should be getting a panalty for holding up a car that isn’t laped and is fighting for position. Leclerc often got closer to him than he did to albon. Remember he was also having to defend which will have made passing albon harder.

    2. Why didnt leclerc just overtake bottas then… Its stuck on slowest car in grid, surely ferrari, one of the fastest cars could easily do that?

    3. The williams go quite quickly on the straights and we saw BOTH Alfa Romeos having trouble passing cars that were quick that way (Zou had trouble getting past Tsunoda for laps at end), much like the Ferraris of Leclerc and Sains were unable to get past the Alpines and Verstappen @jimfromus.

      It could well be down to either the general design of the cars (good/quick over a lap, but not as much straight line speed) or even down to having had to spare the engines a bit given their recent issues with the Ferrari units. Leclerc got past because he was on fresher tyres. They were racing, so there was no reason why Bottas would have to let the Ferrari past.

  4. I do not believe in any engine problems on his car. I will watch the race again to hear any related communication between him and the engineer, but it looks like he is trying to talk himself up. He is losing to Ocon almost every race, no matter where he starts.

    PS: In chess, guys in their 40+ can’t play long matches. They lack the abilitity to focus for so much time, they can’t calculate for so much time, and they lose more and more to younger opponents. However, if we’re talking about blitz chess, then guys in their 40+ are okay, because they don’t have to calculate for hours, just minutes. It’s quite similar to what’s going on with Alonso – he seems to have the speed in quali, but he almost always loses to Ocon in the race.

    1. Not sure about that with Alonso. We’ve seen some astuteness from him throughout races many times. His latest kamikaze comments to trick the into the DRS detection line and get DRS is the latest

      Haven’t heard about the chess thing but it’s quite easy to lose concentration sitting motionless in a chair compared with a F1 car. Stimulus really helps keeping someone focused. Apples to oranges

    2. Ted mentioned the problem on the feed, and the engineer did say “we will hold position due to the straight-line speed issue”.

    3. Alonso had car issues all the way through the race.

      You can hear and see everything here:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoszB_gb4Uc

      Painting Alonso as being unfit, in decline or unfocused is hilarious. He’s still probably the most fit driver on the grid.

  5. Alpine failed with Alonso’s strategy, although the weaving penalty that cost him more points was on him.

  6. Can’t argue with that

  7. As is normal in the FIA, there is a rule book for each driver. Magnussen agrees too.

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