Alonso and Stroll teamed up for a sprint on the back straight during Sunday’s race at the Circuit of The Americas after the Aston Martin driver made a late save on the left.
The resulting collision sent Alonso’s car into the air before returning to the road, carrying the damage that left him slowly returning to the pits. Alonso was able to continue, while Stroll was eliminated from the race due to contact.
Alonso said on the radio after the crash that “it was too late”, but after seeing the stewards – who gave Stroll a three-place grid penalty for the next race in Mexico – he put it down as a race incident.
“Honestly, if you see something on TV, I think it’s a racing event to be honest,” said Alonso, who was given a 30-second penalty after the race that dropped him from seventh to 15th after the Haas show at Alpine. it’s interesting.
“We move at the same time to the left, and that was the first of everything. So I think it was an unpleasant moment for everyone.”
The two drivers will race together at Aston Martin next season after Alonso signed a multi-year deal with the team at the end of August.
Alonso said that he and Stroll were “good in the control room” when they discussed the incident, and that it was “more between our sporting directors than between us.”
“I think we saw this event with the same eyes,” he added. “Our sports leaders, they see it with completely different eyes!”
Fernando Alonso, Alpine A522, in the pits after a crash on the track
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Asked if he thought Stroll was too late to defend this position, Alonso replied: “Of course, but when you are at 300 [km/h], those movements, you know, one tenth of a second, you move 200 meters. .
“If it’s in slow motion and you move it with the frame, it’s going to go slower than me.” If you go for a normal run, you will see two cars more or less at the same time.
“That’s why after watching it on TV, I think there’s nothing you can do differently.”
Alonso admitted that the accident was “not good” to watch, revealing that he feared his car had gone into the fence on the left side of the track.
“I thought I was on the left, and obviously if you touch the back fence, which is metal, then you spin in the air 360 [degrees],” said Alonso.
“You see this type of accident a lot in IndyCar, and they are dangerous. I thought I was limited to that fence. And when the car reached the track, I thought it’s okay, all this is safe.
Alonso thought that his car “for sure will break”, but not only could he continue in the race after getting a new nose and front wing, he was able to charge up to seventh – before a protest from Haas resulted in his penalty.
“I was surprised when they changed the tires and front wing and took me outside,” he said.
“I said ok, you know, it’s just a test, but they’ll call me on the next lap or something, but apparently not, the car was fine, when they looked at it, everything was fine, so we kept going.
“The second [bad] news was that we go to the end with a set of [hard] tires, and we were 32 laps to the end, which I thought we would never do.
“It was a good call from the team and a good idea in the end. To finish P7 [before the penalty] in the end with a broken car and we were last, it’s a real thing.”
