George Russell believes that not punishing Fernando Alonso for his controversial maneuver in the Australian GP that resulted in the Mercedes driver’s crash would have sent the wrong message to drivers and “really opened a can of worms”.
The debate over Alonso’s move in Melbourne continued to simmer ahead of this weekend’s Japanese GP.
The Aston Martin driver was under fire for breaking early as he approached Turn 6 on the penultimate lap of the race at Albert Park while defending his sixth-place position against Russell.
The move caught out the Briton who veered off course and into the outside wall, his severely damaged W15 car coming to rest in the middle of the track.
The stewards took a dim view of Alonso’s maneuver and hit the Spaniard with a post-race 20-second time penalty for “driving in a manner that was potentially dangerous”, a sanction that dropped him to P8 in the race’s final standings.
“It was obviously a bit of a strange situation that happened last week,” Russell explained. “As I said at the time it totally caught by surprise.
“I was actually looking at the steering wheel, making a switch change in the straight, which we all do across the lap, and when I looked up I was in Fernando’s gearbox and it was sort of too late. And then next thing I know that I’m in the wall.”
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Russell felt that letting Alonso's driving go unpunished could have had a ripple effect. If such maneuvers become acceptable in Formula 1, he worried that other drivers, especially in junior categories, might be tempted to replicate the strategy, potentially leading to more accidents and dangerous racing.
“If it were not to have been penalised, it would have really opened a can of worms for the rest of the season and in junior categories,” he said.
“Saying: Are you allowed to brake in a straight? Are you allowed to slow down, change gear, accelerate, do something semi-erratic?”
“I don’t take anything personally what happened with Fernando and it probably had bigger consequences than it should have.
“But as I said, if it went unpenalised, can you just brake in the middle of a straight? I don’t know.”
Speaking in Thursday’s FIA drivers conference at Suzuka, Russell revealed that last week in Monaco, he and Alonso “coincidentally bumped into each other in a coffee shop”.
Looking on, a facetious Max Verstappen drew laughter when he asked his Mercedes rival: “Did you brake test him there?”
“As I said, it’s nothing personal,” continued Russell. “When the helmet’s on, we’re all fighters and competing, when the helmet’s off, you have respect for one another.
“So of course there’s a lot of emotions in the moment but I think we both move forwards from this.”
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