Alonso wants FIA to enforce F1's 'gentleman's agreement'

Fernando Alonso wants the FIA to intervene to help enforce the gentleman's agreement that is intended to protect the running order in qualifying and prevent drivers from jumping the queue.

Alonso found himself on the receiving end of a messy situation at the end of Q2 on Saturday, when his qualifying flyer was ruined at the final corner by a slow-moving Sebastian Vettel who was himself in a train of cars waiting to make a final run.

Vettel was hit a three-place grid penalty by the Austrian Grand Prix stewards while Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz, who were running slowly just ahead of the Aston Martin driver, were spared a sanction as they had no direct involvement in the incident.

In his defense, Vettel argued that several drivers had "jumped the queue" ahead of their run – or failed to respect F1's gentleman's agreement - to gain track position only to slow to create a gap before starting their flyer.

• Read also: Vettel handed three-place grid penalty, others cleared

"We need someone that helps us from the outside, and the only one that can help from the outside is the FIA, in my opinion," said Alonso, quoted by Motorsport.com.

"Because the teams, they deal with tyre performance, with battery performance, with everything that is on the competitive side.

"But on the safety side, and on the regulation side, we cannot put everything on the team’s table, because they are always looking about competitiveness. So maybe we need help from the FIA."

Regarding Saturday's incident in Q2, Alonso reckoned that every driver in the queue should have been punished, as they had all transgressed a rule added to the race notes by FIA race director Michael Masi in Friday's driver briefing, and which specifically forbid drivers from slowing between Turns 9 and 10.

"If it's written that you cannot do one thing and you do it, then you get a penalty - so that is clear for everybody," Alonso said.

"That’s the first help, and second, maybe there is a system. I know in Baku they introduced a minimum lap time that you have to do in the outlaps.

"So basically, how you exit the pitlane in that position, you will end up starting the lap in that position because we all have the same delta time.

"So then there are no more tricks or no more overtaking you see in outlaps or anything like that, because we will have to respect the same delta. Maybe that's another system that can help us for sure."

Haas rookie Nikita Mazepin was singled at the start of the season for not respecting F1's gentleman's agreement in qualifying. But the Russian said that Saturday's antics proved that the more notorious drivers in the field are not held to the same standards as those at the bottom of the timesheet.

"I was made a very easy target in Bahrain in qualifying, and everyone’s made a big deal out of it," Mazepin said.

"F1 is very double faced world. If you've got a big name with loads of championships under your belt, your actions are less criticised than if you don’t.

"I'm not sure what happened today in qualifying because I haven't seen it. But yesterday in the drivers' briefing, our race director has made new rules, saying that you have to make your track position in Turn 8 and you're not allowed to back up in Turn 9 and 10, which means that you have to keep up to speed into those two corners.

"And what I've seen happen in Q2 is the exact opposite. Every driver is a human, they can get caught out and they've been caught out.

"Everyone just needs to apply the same rules to each other, and then it will be a happy place."

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