Alonso’s car confused by Safety Car

In brief

Alonso’s car confused by Safety Car

Alonso said the team has had the problem with its car for a long time. “At the beginning we had some issues,” he told the official F1 channel. “It’s a well-known problem, we are struggling with something on the car.

“I think it’s the deployment of the energy of something after the Safety Cars, the car is still thinking that we are behind the Safety Car, so we don’t deploy all the energy on the electrical power. So we are lacking a little bit of top speed and we are vulnerable at that part of the race.”

Despite the problem Alonso finished seventh, his best result since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, in his 400th race. “We capitalised on some [retirements] and some penalties. So we were ready there to take it and I was just happy for the team and hopefully we finish on a positive note in Abu Dhabi, this championship.”

Lawson apologises to Bottas for collision

Liam Lawson said he did not mean to collide with Valtteri Bottas during yesterday’s race. “In these conditions we’re trying to do everything we can for [tyre] warm-up and I thought I had more grip than I did,” he told the official F1 channel.

“I went into turn one trying to obviously make the move and I got halfway around the corner and realised I didn’t have the grip. And honestly, from that point, I think I spun because I was trying not to hit Valtteri and I guess I did. So I’m sorry for that, it wasn’t my intention.”

Verschoor and Crawford penalised

Formula 2 driver Richard Verschoor picked up an unusual penalty in yesterday’s features race as the stewards ruled he unlapped himself without permission during a Safety Car period. He was given a 10-second stop-go penalty.

Jak Crawford was given a 10-second time penalty for colliding with Rafael Villagomez, though as he retired from the feature race, it becomes a five-place grid drop for the next round.

Just finish watching the Qatar F1 race. Gotta say that those penalties are quite unusual and bloody complicated to understand…

— Romain Grosjean (@RGrosjean) December 1, 2024

Gravel traps in @F1 not the answer-makes such a mess ‘cos inevitably gets on track….

— Derek Daly (@DerekDaly500) December 1, 2024

There’s going to be questions over whether the debris from the wing mirror caused these punctures – and if so whether F1’s new race director should have neutralised the race much sooner so the mirror could be cleared.

#F1 #QatarGP #RaceFans

— Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine.bsky.social) 1 December 2024 at 16:57

| Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Katederby and Us Williams Fan!