Fernando Alonso criticises FIA for ‘too harsh’ Aus GP penalty for Carlos Sainz

Fernando Alonso has criticised the FIA stewards for their five-second penalty given to Carlos Sainz at the end of the Australian Grand Prix, calling it “too harsh” – despite being on the receiving end of contact from the Ferrari driver.

The final restart of a frenetic race at Albert Park with two laps to go saw Sainz try to get alongside his compatriot, but he tagged Alonso’s right-rear tyre at Turn 1, sending the two-time World Champion into a spin and dropping him to the back of the field.

Alonso was on team radio immediately cursing what had happened to him, calling upon the FIA to restore the field to its grid restart order and citing the example of last year’s British Grand Prix as precedent for doing so.

Additional reporting by Michael Lamonato

The race was red-flagged again after both Alpine drivers ended up in the wall and Nyck de Vries and Logan Sargeant had made contact, but with one lap to go, the decision was made to have a rolling restart under yellow flag conditions, putting the cars back to their grid restart positions – which will have appeased the Aston Martin driver, as it placed him on the podium.

But while Sainz had been put back into fourth position, he was informed in the pit lane that he had received a five-second penalty for causing a collision with Alonso.

The Ferrari driver branded this “unacceptable”, and with the race finishing under yellow flag conditions, an addition of five seconds to his race time dropped him down to last of the 12 classified finishers.

And even though Alonso was on the wrong end of a mistake from Sainz, he felt the punishment did not fit the crime in this scenario.

“I mean, probably the penalty is too harsh,” Alonso said after the race.

“I think because on lap one it is very difficult always to judge what the grip level [is] and I think we don’t go intentionally into another car, you know, because we know that we risk also our car and our final position, so sometimes you end up in places that you wish you were not there in that moment.

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“And it’s just part of racing, but I didn’t see the replay properly, but for me, it feels too harsh.”

The FIA wrote in their verdict that Sainz was “wholly to blame” for the incident at the end of the race, with the Spaniard complaining over team radio that the stewards had not allowed him to get his point across to them in person before making a decision over a punishment.

He also had two penalty points added to his FIA Super Licence, blemishing a previously clean record on there as he and Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc leave Australia without a point between them.