Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Hamilton praises FIA for investigating Alonso crash

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.”

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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.