'No fun for us' in sprint race as 'we get a penalty whatever we do'

Fernando Alonso said there is no point trying to fight his way forwards in tomorrow’s sprint race as he’s likely to get another penalty.

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The Aston Martin driver has received two penalties in the last three race weekends for his role in incidents with other drivers. He was given three penalty points on his licence for each, meaning he is halfway towards an automatic ban.

Having qualified eighth for tomorrow’s first race at the Miami International Autodrome, Alonso said “the sprint race means nothing, especially because we cannot fight or anything like that.

“We receive penalties for whatever we do,” he told the official F1 channel. “So tomorrow is a day for fun, but not for us. Not very interesting.”

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin, Shanghai International Circuit, 2024 — **Feature: Why Alonso has a point about his career history of one-off penalties**

Alonso’s latest penalty came when he clashed with Carlos Sainz Jnr in the sprint race at the Shanghai International Circuit two weeks ago. His team requested a review of the incident ahead of this weekend’s race, which the stewards are yet to announce their decision on.

The two-times world champion was out-qualified by his team mate Lance Stroll after deciding not to run the soft tyres until the final part of qualifying.

“It was difficult for sure to read the grip on track and the change the tyre compound from the medium to the soft at the end,” he said. “It was difficult, but the same for everybody. We put both cars in Q3, which was the target, and let’s see tomorrow.”

Stroll re-used his set of soft tyres from practice at the end of qualifying and pipped Alonso to seventh place by four-hundredths of a second.

“That was a good qualifying for sure, on the used tyre to save a set for tomorrow’s qualifying,” said Stroll. “Hopefully we can try and put something up in the sprint race.”

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6 comments on “‘No fun for us’ in sprint race as ‘we get a penalty whatever we do’ – Alonso”

DB-C90 (@dbradock)
4th May 2024, 4:43
Yep, it’s never your fault Fernando.
SteveP
4th May 2024, 8:17
“Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me”
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
4th May 2024, 8:22
Don’t go all “Aww Diddums” on us Fernando.
Just put your boot down and give us all some entertainment ;)
hje
4th May 2024, 9:17
Have you ever consider not to crash into other driver, blame an innocent guy, and not get a penalty for that?
Classic Fernando, always the same. Everyone conspire against him, to prevent him from being the GOAT. Even that old barrier from Australia ’22 is suddenly remembered, because he bottled his SQ3 lap so hard, he lost to Stroll. His wrist wasn’t an issue in China (P3 in both SQ and Q), but now he remembers it is.
Just retire already, help fixing F1 by eliminating toxicity and stupidity.
1. MichaelN
  4th May 2024, 12:47
  Have you ever consider not to crash into other driver, blame an innocent guy, and not get a penalty for that?
  He’s just trying to make them second guess giving him a penalty by framing it as a biased, vendetta-like situation in advance. Is not quite as clever and subtle as Alonso seemingly thinks it is, though. He should be brought in to the FIA to explain his latest attempt to undermine the stewards and call their neutrality into question.
2. Ben-Hur (@ben-hur)
  5th May 2024, 18:03
  eliminating toxicity and stupidity.
  Which could begin with the above comment