Lewis Hamilton has praised the FIA for investigating Fernando Alonso’s crash which left him hospitalised for three days.
Alonso hit the wall on the inside of the track between turns 3 and 4 at the Circuit de Catalunya, needing to be airlifted to hospital following the accident. While Hamilton says he isn’t aware of the circumstances surrounding the crash, he says he is happy to see the FIA is getting involved to see what can be learned from it.
“I don’t really know too much about it,” Hamilton said. “I hope Fernando’s OK. I’m not really sure what has happened, I didn’t see it or know how hard he hit the barrier but I’m aware that he spent more than one day in hospital so it has to be pretty severe for that to have happened and to have a concussion.
“It’s great that the FIA [are involved]. They are always very keen to try and learn and improve things because obviously safety is the number one priority before everything else.”
Romain Grosjean also said he wants to see improvements in safety for the kind of impact which Alonso suffered.
“I don’t know what happened,” Grosjean said. “I know that day was very wind and gusty which made Turn 3 a bit tricky. I don’t know if he went on to the astroturf on the exit - I hate that surface because when you get on it either you lose the car or you stay straight. I don’t know if he hit that and then went in to the barrier.
“I think first we can be happy that he is OK and has left the hospital and then the second thing we can learn is how to get the driver’s safety a bit higher when it’s a lateral impact.”
Full times and day one of the final test as it happened
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