Fernando Alonso gave another indication that he won't be spending his winter holiday with Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon after the two drivers came to blows out on the track in Saturday's Brazilian Grand Prix Sprint event.
Both drivers made a mess of their strong performance in qualifying, the pair making contact on the opening lap and then again on the main straight, mutually inflicting damage that eventually left them out of the points and well down the order at the checkered flag.
Alonso claimed that Ocon had pushed him wide on the exit of Turn 4, but while the move was investigated by the stewards, they ultimately took no further action.
However, the Alpine duo was called to the stewards' office for a second offense, when Alonso misjudged an overtake on his teammate as they ran at full speed on the main straight and rammed into the back of Ocon, which permanently damaged the Spaniard's front wing.
The stewards subsequently handed Alonso a five second post-race penalty for that incident.
Alonso and Ocon have banged wheels on several occasion this season, with no apparent impact on their working relationship within the team.
But speaking to the media after his run-in with Ocon on Saturday, Alonso expressed his relief at their being just one more race for the Alpine pair to endure.
The future Aston Martin charger also referenced previous clashes suffered with Ocon this season as well as the latter's track record with past teammates.
"I don’t need [to talk to Ocon]," Alonso told Sky F1 when asked if he would discuss Saturday's incidents with his teammate.
"It’s one more race and then it’s over, finally. I was very close to the wall in Jeddah, close to the wall in Budapest, today in Turn 4 and now here.
"It’s the way things are, sometimes it’s very competitive inside the team. It happened to him with Perez [at Force India], with Verstappen unlapping himself [in Brazil, 2018]. It’s one more race."
From dead last in the running order after two laps due to a pitstop to replace his front wing, Alonso regained five places to finish P15. Despite his frustrations, the Spaniard felt that points would be possible on Sunday.
"It was far from ideal when you touch on the first lap of a sprint race, it’s too short just to come back with the help of a Safety Car or anything," he admitted.
"On the positive side, the pace was really good today, close to the leaders actually.
"We could recover a few places, P15 tomorrow to start the race. If we have this pace, we can score good points."
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