Fernando Alonso was hit with a pair of five-second time penalties in the Miami Grand Prix. One was for a collision with Pierre Gasly but the other, gaining an advantage by cutting the turn 15 chicane, left his team particularly aggrieved.
The Alpine driver was investigated twice for missing the turn 14 and 15 chicane in the middle sector on laps 53 and lap 56. Alonso was found guilty of infringing the rules on the first occasion but not the second.
Having already lost one place due to his sanction for the Gasly incident, the further penalty dropped Alonso out of the points completely, leaving him 11th in the final classification, a tenth of a second behind Lance Stroll.
Alpine were especially unhappy about Alonso’s second penalty. Were the stewards right to give it? Or should he have been penalised again for his later corner cut?
Incident – lap 53
On lap 53 after the Safety Car restart, Alonso was in eighth position, two seconds behind Valtteri Bottas and less than a second ahead of Mick Schumacher. The Haas driver had been within DRS range of Alonso’s Alpine over the previous nine consecutive DRS zones the pair had driven through, but Schumacher had been unable to attempt a pass in that time.
Entering the tight middle sector, Alonso was 2.8 seconds adrift of Bottas ahead and his advantage over Schumacher was just under half a second (0.476s). Alonso missed the entry to the chicane and took to the inside run off, cutting turn 15 entirely.
Alonso rejoined the circuit and as he entered the long back straight, he held his hand out of the cockpit in a gesture of acknowledgement that he had left the track. He also audibly lifted off the throttle twice along the straight in an attempt to give up time gained by missing the chicane, but only did so after crossing the second DRS detection line. Despite backing off, he had gained 1.4 seconds on Bottas ahead, while Schumacher was now out of DRS range and over 1.2 seconds behind. Alonso’s lap…