Fernando Alonso reckons Lewis Hamilton will avoid being penalised for his part in the Turn 1 clash in Formula 1’s Miami Grand Prix Sprint race as “he’s not Spanish”.
Hamilton, who had qualified 12th, committed to a late dive down the inside into Turn 1, which prompted Alonso to steer towards Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll.
The two drivers touched and Stroll’s car collected Lando Norris’ McLaren, sending both out of the race, while Alonso picked up a puncture that curtailed his prospects.
Meanwhile, Hamilton was able to continue and raced to an eighth-place finish until he was handed the equivalent of a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Asked whether he expected the stewards to take action, Alonso told DAZN: “We’ll see what they decide. I guess they won’t decide anything, because he’s not Spanish.
“But, I think he ruined the race for a few people, especially Norris, who had a very fast car and he was out in that incident.”
Alonso pitted to discard his punctured tyre and emerged at the back of the field behind the Safety Car, where he ended up dicing with former team-mate Esteban Ocon.
The Spaniard, who was penalised for contact with Carlos Sainz in the China Sprint, stated he avoided taking risks against the Alpine driver to prevent getting in trouble.
“Maybe today I didn’t get penalised, but I always get penalised,” he added.
“Today the same thing. I was behind Ocon, I could maybe take a risk and overtake him, but logically I don’t take the risk to avoid being penalised.
“So, I tried to complete the race, which is 19 laps, and go back to the team to talk about the changes.”
Alonso commented that the truncated encounter became a test session for him to gather an understanding of the degradation in race trim for tomorrow’s grand prix.
“We didn’t have any interest in the Sprint race,” he admitted.
“We were just going to check degradation and things for tomorrow and at the end we managed it. For us it’s a free practice, it’s not really a race.
“Now, the important part of the race starts, the qualifying and tomorrow the 57 laps.
“I think we can draw a conclusion from this sprint for the parc ferme that opens now and see if we can improve the car a little bit.”
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