As Palmer demonstrated in his video analysis, Alonso has made similar moves in the past, likely with the same intention: catching his opponent off guard and inducing a driver error.
While Russell’s reaction may have been exaggerated, given how closely he was tailing Alonso, the maneuver was unexpected and dangerous, leaving Russell with little time to react. While Alonso has gotten away with such maneuvers in the past, this time the marshals decided to penalize him, though it’s debatable as similar incidents have gone unpunished before. But this crash was clearly Alonso’s fault.
But this crash was clearly Alonso’s fault.
That’s not what is said on the analysis though. It’s sort of that Alonso operates in a gray area. He does try to trigger a driver error (not a crash though). Then the analysis says it’s too harsh. Plus that there was a lot of room, just that George handled it badly.
https://youtu.be/Z8v9eY3r1p4?t=9m
Stewards seemed to have looked at the result to determine the penalty. That goes against what they said in other cases, that they penalize based upon what was done, not what happens after.
The drivers also seem split on the matter, so the drivers meeting will be very interesting. Norris was particularly vocal about the penalty being wrong, for example.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/Z8v9eY3r1p4?t=9m
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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