Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Drivers unhappy at Monaco stewarding

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A number of drivers are unhappy at the lack of penalties being handed out for blocking in Monaco.

Traffic is often an issue during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, with Q1 seeing all 20 cars on track in a short window chasing lap times. On more than one occasion there was a train of cars slowly approaching Rascasse and the final Anthony Noghes corner as drivers looked for clear air to carry out a lap.

One incident saw Fernando Alonso exit Rascasse on a flying lap to find Romain Grosjean coasting before starting his own timed lap, with the Lotus holding up the McLaren through the final corner. Having referenced a number of other times he was blocked, when asked by F1i if he was surprised by the lack of penalties being handed out, Alonso replied: "I think so, yes.

"The traffic we had this weekend was quite bad. It seems a little bit strange there are not more investigations going on and in free practice it was just ridiculous. In FP3 there was just no rules out there, people were going out of the pit lane on a very slow out lap, you were on a fastest lap and they tried to close the door in every single braking point."

Jenson Button concurred with Alonso's thoughts, feeling the number of out laps required to warm up the tyres is a contributing factor.

"Totally agree [with Alonso]," Button said. "It feels the worst it has been but we're going to do it unless there's a penalty. That's the problem."

Button also said the matter would be brought up with FIA race director Charlie Whiting at the next drivers' briefing.

Click here for Saturday's gallery from the Monaco Grand Prix

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.