Fernando Alonso bemoans F1 ‘mistaking racing mistakes for dangerous driving’

Although supportive of F1’s penalty points system stamping out dangerous driving, Fernando Alonso says somewhere along the way the stewards have begun to mistake “racing mistakes for dangerous driving”.

Last time out in Austria, Alonso was handed two penalty points as well as a 10-second penalty for causing a collision with Zhou Guanyu at Turn 3 in the Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso: We are taking away the incentive to try an overtaking manoeuvre

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

While he agrees he “deserved” the time penalty, the Spaniard feels the penalty points were unjust as it was a mistake, not dangerous driving.

That wasn’t the only penalty situation he was involved in at the Red Bull Ring with Nico Hulkenberg handed the same punishment for their Sprint clash.

Attempting to pass Alonso late in the 23-lap race, Hulkenberg ran wide on his worn Pirellis and forced Alonso off the track.

The Aston Martin driver says that too was a “mistake”, and that there wasn’t any “danger involved” to warrant penalty points.

“I think when penalty points were introduced, it was to avoid dangerous drivers to keep [from] accumulating penalties without a race ban,” Alonso told media including PlanetF1.com.

“Just to avoid dangerous manoeuvres and putting in danger anyone on track.

“I think now we are mistaking racing mistakes for dangerous driving.

“I made a racing mistake in Turn 3 and I hit Zhou Guanyu and I deserve 10-second penalty. I think maybe Nico in the race made a racing mistake and you pay the price.

“You give back the position or you have five seconds or 10 seconds. This is a racing mistake, it always will happen and it did happen in the past.

“What I don’t get is the danger involved from those manoeuvres, because there is no danger.

“We are taking away the incentive to try an overtaking manoeuvre. Because if you make a racing mistake, you will get penalised with penalty points.

“So it’s better sometimes to stay behind because they are just promoting only DRS overtaking because you cannot make an attempt to pass anyone because it’s going to be penalty points for one of the two drivers.

“So this is for me wrong.”

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Penalty points were introduced in 2014, the decision made in the wake of Romain Grosjean one-race ban and €50,000 fine for triggering the Belgian Grand Prix start crash.

Alonso though, feels Formula 1 has now gone too far with its numerous rules.

“We try to prevent dangerous drivers taking penalties every two or three weekends and putting people in danger,” he said.

“I think this was back when [Romain] Grosjean had the accident in Spa with Lewis and myself involved and things like that, and it was a race ban in Monza that year.

“Now I think it’s definitely we’ve never had so many rules as we have now. We cannot overtake on the pit lane, we cannot go fast on the pit lane, we cannot go slow on track, we cannot do basically anything.

“And yeah, this is probably over-regulated and as drivers we feel frustrated sometimes, teams as well.

“But we need to find a solution between all of us. We cannot leave the FIA alone on this, we need to propose something that is better than the current rules. And this is something that we need to do between all of us.”

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