Fernando Alonso has been relegated outside of the top 10 at Formula 1’s Miami Grand Prix after he received a time penalty post-race.
Alonso had already received a five-second time penalty for colliding with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly at Turn 1 but he was judged to have gone wide at Turn 14 in the closing stages.
Stewards deemed that Alonso gained an unfair advantage from doing so and issued a five-second time drop.
That means Alonso moved from ninth to 11th in the final classification.
Alonso’s penalty consequently promotes Alexander Albon into ninth for his best result of the season, with Lance Stroll rounding out the top 10.
Vettel, Hamilton, Ricciardo, Alonso, looking a little shabby. Aren’t they?
Painfully evident, even the most obtuse of motorsport analysts have little choice but begrudgingly concede, their time’s long since come and gone. As of this writing, your #1 over 30 driver in F1 is, Sergio Perez.
No, Alonso is still the best driver on the grid by a longshot. Every driver makes mistakes, but young guys like Leclerc and Verstappen make WAY too many and are sloppy – just imagine how bad they will be the age of 40. Unfortunately due to Alonso’s car he gets stuck towards the rear/middle of the field with backmarkers like Hamilton (who blatantly turned into Alonso early on). With that being said, Ocon is also legitimately good and if the two of them were in a Ferrari or Red Bull they would be slaughtering the rest of the grid. Not sure what the Perez praise is all about, he seems like a shell of his former self at Force India. He has the best car on the grid and can barely get on the podium. He only had a seat because Red Bull know he cannot beat Verstappen who has a clear number one driver status (or else he wouldn’t have signed such a long contract).
My vote for most improved driver in F1, Sergio Perez. His qualifying form over the last year, notably so.