Fernando Alonso has responded to Isack Hadjar tagging his radio outburst as “grumpy” after an intense battle during Formula 1‘s Singapore Grand Prix.
The 62-lap race around the Marina Bay Street Circuit served up some intense wheel-to-wheel racing action.
Amongst this, the duo of Alonso and Hadjar were embroiled in a couple of heated interactions that saw the two-time World Champion have to force his way past the rookie.
The Racing Bulls driver, though ceding position at the end, was stout in his defence – something that seemingly rubbed the Spaniard the wrong way.
Alonso jumped onto his team’s airwaves, sarcastically dubbing Hadjar as the “hero of the race”.
After the chequered flag dropped, however, Hadjar called the Aston Martin driver out for his criticisms.
“I didn’t push him off the track,” Hadjar told media including Motorsport Week.
“I kept it clean. If he didn’t enjoy that fight, then he’s really grumpy and there’s nothing I can do for him.”
Alonso responds to Hadjar comment
Alonso later realised that Hadjar, in fact, had been nursing a suspected power unit issue in the second half of the race.
The Spaniard was quick to point this out when talking to the media post-race, but refused to completely absolve Hadjar from what he deemed an unnecessary battle.
“I think he had a little bit of an engine problem, from what I understood, on the straights – he was slow,” Alonso explained.
“Sometimes, some battles you need to know when it’s better to fight, when it’s not, because probably the final result of the race could be worse for both for sure – but for him in particular.
“So yeah, I think some unnecessary risk, but I understand that this is Singapore and you need to fight hard, and he did his best, but we lost time for sure.”
As things stand, Aston Martin and Racing Bulls are locked in a battle for sixth, with the Faenza-based squad narrowly leading the British marque by four points.
Yet, when informed about Hadjar’s “grumpy” description of his radio antics, Alonso took a sly jab at the rookie and his team.
“Well, some movements at 300km/h are a little bit borderline in Singapore, but everyone races as they want and there was no contact, nothing like that, so everything is fine,” he said.
“They have a very fast car, they don’t have many points, so it’s more their problem.”
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