Fernando Alonso says the FIA made “serious mistakes” in its reaction to Yuki Tsunoda’s crash during the final stage of qualifying.
The Aston Martin driver said he missed his chance to improve his lap time because the red flag was used too hastily. He also described how he was incorrectly sent to parc ferme before the session ended.
Alonso was nearing the end of his final lap in Q3 when Tsunoda went wide at Turn Five and hit a barrier, severely damaging his car. The session was quickly red-flagged, meaning several drivers, including Alonso, were unable to complete their final laps.
He said the timing of the decision to red flag the session was one of the mistakes made by race control. “The truth is that the FIA sometimes gets it right and sometimes makes huge mistakes,” he told Spanish broadcaster DAZN. “Today they had made one.
“They put out the red flag when I was in the last corner, which is surprising. There was an accident in turn eight (five). Normally they always wait for the cars to complete the lap. It is the ‘spoken rule’.”
Alonso said he was “a tenth and a half” faster than his previous lap when the session was red flagged.
The Medical Car was deployed in response to Tsunoda’s accident, necessitating a neutralisation of the session, which is why the red flag was displayed. Only 12 seconds elapsed between the appearance of the yellow flag in the sector where Tsunoda’s accident began and the appearance of the red flags. This was followed by the dispatch of the Medical Car onto the track 25 seconds later.
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The appearance of the red flag caused some confusion for Alonso and team-mate Lance Stroll, as both were mistakenly sent into the parc ferme by marshals, who wrongly believed the session was over. Once they realised their error, the two Aston Martin drivers were allowed to return to their garages to join the others at the restart.
“Coming into the pits, Lance and I were put into parc fermé,” said Alonso. “They closed the pit lane. They put us into parc fermé, we got out of the car and then we were told that Q3 was starting again.”
However, Alonso warned that as he was out of fresh tyres, the error probably had no impact on his starting position.
“We got back in the car, they fastened our seatbelts and we went to the garage,” he said. “I had no tyres left, so I didn’t go out again.”
“All these things don’t usually happen in these races,” added Alonso, who is F1’s most experienced driver.
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2024 Hungarian Grand Prix
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