Fernando Alonso has jumped to the defence of George Russell as the relationship between the Mercedes driver and Max Verstappen continued to deteriorate ahead of the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Russell and Verstappen have been engaged in a vicious war of words since Verstappen lost pole position in Qatar, accusing the British driver of having different personas depending on if he is around officials or media.
The situation has deteriorated further heading into Abu Dhabi this weekend, with Verstappen doubling down on his criticism, stating he had “no regrets at all” over his remarks that he has lost respect for his rival.
Russell, however, has hit back this week with the shocking claim that Verstappen told him after meeting him in the stewards’ room that would “put me on my f***ing head in the wall’” in the race in Lusail.
In an attempt to calm the growing tensions, F1 veteran Alonso said the issue can be traced back to decision-making by the stewards, calling out the inconsistency of the penalties awarded during race weekends.
Speaking to media on Thursday, including Motorsport Week, Alonso, when reacting to Verstappen’s initial comments about Russell’s “double face” personas, did not agree with Verstappen’s statement.
“No, I don’t think so. I think George is a great driver, great person,” Alonso said. ” I’m a good friend of George as well.
“I don’t think that he’s showing different faces here and there.
” I think it’s more about what Max probably agrees with me that I said many times, that some of the penalties are a little bit not consistent in terms of, you know, if you have that one episode in Qatar and then you go to the next event and you replicate exactly the same episode, which you can replicate by yourself.
“You can induce that episode driving, then you don’t get the same result in terms of penalties,” he remarked.
Time needed to implement change
Alonso explained the lack of consistency could lead to frustration amongst the drivers but said with the new F1 Race Director Rui Marques implementing change; he was hopeful of more consistency.
“So, that’s the frustration that we sometimes have,” Alonso admitted.
“But recently we changed the race director, we changed also some of the people in the stewards’ room.
“So, hopefully all those changes are for good and to improve this consistency that we are asking.
“So we need to give them a little bit of time as well. And hopefully, here and next year, we have a more consistent and better outcomes”, he concluded.
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