Fernando Alonso claimed the FIA made “gross mistakes” in its reaction to Yuki Tsunoda’s crash during the final stage of qualifying.
The Aston Martin driver said he lost his chance to improve his lap time because the red flag was used too hastily. He also described how he was incorrectly sent into parc ferme before the session had finished.
Alonso was nearing the end of his final lap in Q3 when Tsunoda went off at the exit of turn five and hit a barrier, heavily damaging his car. The session was quickly red-flagged which meant several drivers, including Alonso, were unable to complete their final runs.
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 they make gross 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 accident at turn eight [five]. Normally they always wait for the cars to complete the lap. It’s the ‘spoken norm’.”
Alonso said he was “a tenth and a half” quicker than his previous lap when the session was red-flagged.
The Medical Car was deployed in response to Tsunoda’s crash, which requires the session to be neutralised, which was why the red flag was shown. There was only 12 seconds between the yellow flag being shown in the sector where Tsunoda’s crash began and the red flags being displayed. This was followed 25 seconds later by the Medical Car being sent onto the track.
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The appearance of the red flag caused some confusion for Alonso and team mate Lance Stroll as both were incorrectly sent into the ‘parc ferme’ area by officials who incorrectly believed the session had ended. Once they realised their mistake, both Aston Martin drivers were allowed to drive back to their garages so they would be able to join the others in the restart.
“When entering the pit lane, Lance and I were put into parc ferme,” said Alonso. “They closed the pit lane. They put us into parc ferme, we got out of the car, then they told us that Q3 was starting again.”
However Alonso noted that as he had no further fresh tyres left, the error likely made no difference to his starting position.
“We went back to the car, they tightened our seatbelts, we went to the garage,” he…
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