The Brazilian Grand Prix stewards are investigating one of two collisions between the two Alpine drivers in today’s sprint race.
The stewards decided not to investigate an incident between the pair at turn one on the first lap but are looking into their subsequent clash on the main straight.The pair went side-by-side through the first two corners before Fernando Alonso tried to pass Esteban Ocon on the outside of Descida do Lago, turn four. Alonso ran wide onto a kerb and nearly lost control of his car.
He tried again to pass Ocon in the flat-out curve which brings drivers onto the main straight but clipped his team mate’s right-rear wheel. That left Alonso with front wing damage which forced him into the pits.
Ocon also suffered bodywork damage and finished out of the points. He said it was “unfortunate for the team, really, what happened” as the team gave away points to McLaren, their closest rivals in the championship.
“We were in a good position, we are now at the back with a lot of work to do tomorrow,” he told Sky. “So it’s going to be important to work together tomorrow to come back through the field. We’ve done that a thousand times in the last two years.
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“It is unfortunate what happened on lap one, I was trying to attack the McLaren, took my line into four and Fernando came out of nowhere from the outside, so we touched and from there on, my race was pretty much over.”
“On the positive side, the pace was very good today, close to the leaders actually, so we could recover a few places. P15 tomorrow to start the race and if we have this pace, we can still score points.”
The two-times world champion, who will leave Alpine at the end of the year, said he wasn’t interested in talking to Ocon. He pointed out the pair have had close incidents previously during the season, noted Ocon had clashed with Sergio Perez while the pair were team mates at Force India and recalled his team mate’s 2018 collision with Max Verstappen at Interlagos.
“There’s one more race and then it’s over, finally,” said Alonso. “I was very close to the wall in Jeddah, I think, close to the wall in Budapest, today in turn four now here. So either way, these things are sometimes very competitive inside a team.
“It happened to him with Perez, with Verstappen here unlapping himself. So, it’s one more race.”
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2022 Brazilian Grand Prix
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Edvaldo
12th November 2022, 21:42
I would love to know if Alonso is aware that Stroll have been doing the same stuff to his team mates for quite some time already.
He’s changing teams, but likely will still be unhappy next year.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th November 2022, 22:00
True, was thinking: now, this could be a reason that flew under the radar to leave alpine, but actually stroll isn’t any better with that and showed it right today.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th November 2022, 22:15
Fred will, once again, have to shut up about his teammate, until he looks for greener pastures elsewhere.
No different to this year.
BasCB (@bascb)
12th November 2022, 22:34
Well, he does have a point when he talks about Ocon often overly agressive defending against his teammates. He does have bit of a history with that @proesterchen, @esploratore1, @evaldo.
Not that it changes the facts of this case – Alonso went off track where Ocon did not expect him to be there and stay there first and then just drove into the back of his teammate. Looks like the Stewards also did not buy this BS argument form Fernando – seconds added to his race time and 2 penalty points
David
12th November 2022, 23:04
The difference next year will be that I don’t expect Stroll to be that close to Alonso in quali as he is to Vettel this year so shouldn’t be that much of a problem but we will see
Niefer (@niefer)
12th November 2022, 22:14
This last remark, lol, savage from Alonso!
To be frank, I quite like the fact Ocon is no pushover. However, he can be devious sometimes, which isn’t any cool. That said, after CotA and now this, two very late moves with the same result tells me maybe Fernando has lost his touch on slipstream, which was pretty decent back in 2007. Of course, Stroll did move just as late – 2 races in a row and counting -, which made him to blame, but Ocon did nothing wrong at the main straight this time.
What’s interesting now, I’m afraid those three won’t catch a break next year. It’s clear Stroll isn’t short of Ocon on doing those shananigans, and I’m sure he is more dangerous to tangle with, not to mention it’s harder when you pick a fight with your boss. As for Esteban, I’m calling right now that by Melbourne it’s gonna be fireworks over Alpine already. Jeddah is a nice place to rekindle the bad blood between him and Pierre.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
13th November 2022, 1:52
What he did to have merc win at interlagos was enough for a ban.
Erix
13th November 2022, 2:47
The baby is still blaming on Ocon
Jere (@jerejj)
13th November 2022, 6:42
I guess he briefly forgot the actual race this weekend is left to run when he said one more race.
w0o0dy
13th November 2022, 7:36
The amount of crashes and weird (+sometimes dangerous) moves Ocon makes do add up to a driver that will rather crash than give a teammate some space. That’s a bad thing. How far he is willing to go sometimes is worrying. Mind you, Alonso can be quite selfish in his racing but… He is usually the faster of the two so maybe he should have an easier time with teammates not going out of their way (literally) to hold him off. As a team principal I would make that policy. The father one gets by without contact, deal with it or you are gone.