George Russell had no complaints about Fernando Alonso’s tactical slowing in the Japanese Grand Prix following the clash between the pair two weeks ago.
Alonso was given a drive-through penalty after the Australian Grand Prix for suddenly slowing in front of Russell on the penultimate lap of the race, leading to the Mercedes driver crashing out.
Over the final stages of today’s race Alonso again appeared to deliberately reduce his speed while running ahead of Russell while the pair were separated by Oscar Piastri’s McLaren. However Alonso did so much more gradually, in order to allow the McLaren driver to use his DRS and increase his chances of keeping Russell behind him, and thereby help protect Alonso.
“It was smart from Fernando and I expected nothing less,” Russell told Sky afterwards. “That’s part of racing.”
Despite Alonso’s assistance, Piastri was unable to keep his position. He ran wide at the chicane on the penultimate lap and Russell overtook him.
The McLaren driver said he immediately understood what Alonso was doing when he gained on the Aston Martin. “I could tell by the way he was using the energy,” said Piastri. “I could tell he was trying to keep me in his DRS so George didn’t pass me and attack him.
“So I knew exactly what he was doing. But I just made a bit of a mistake into the last chicane, locked up a bit, and that was it.”
However Alonso, who strongly criticised his Australian Grand Prix penalty, did not confirm whether he had slowed down on purpose. “[With] Oscar, maybe he was not having the top speed to really attack me,” he said.
Russell ran out of time to catch Alonso after passing Piastri and finished 1.6 seconds behind his rival.
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2024 Japanese Grand Prix
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