Liam Lawson has claimed Fernando Alonso threatened to «screw» him after a scrap during the sprint race for Formula 1’s United States Grand Prix.
Racing for the first time since replacing Daniel Ricciardo after the Singapore GP, Lawson managed to irk Alonso while trying to pass the Aston Martin driver during the 19-lap sprint on Saturday morning, the two-time F1 world champion feeling Lawson could have caused a collision.
Come qualifying, the New Zealander had his mirrors filled by Alonso coming out of the pits before the Spaniard overtook him into Turn 1, delaying his progress.
“He said he would screw me and I guess he kept his word,” said Lawson.
“He was really upset, I’m not sure why. We were racing for P16 and I don’t know why he was so upset. It is what it is. Hopefully, he can get over it and we’ll move forward.
“Just out of the box playing games. It is what it is, it’s part of it — it doesn’t bother me.
“I understand he had a pretty horrible race so I can understand why he’s upset. But if I did anything wrong I’d have got a penalty. So, yeah…”
Liam Lawson, Visa Cash App RB F1 Team, and Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin F1 Team
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Asked if he had expected to make a rival out of a two-time F1 world champion on his first outing of the year, Lawson replied: “I don’t think we have a rivalry, we just had an incident in the race and we can just get over it and move forward.”
Alonso would not be moved into discussing what he had said to Lawson after the session but felt their battle had been “unnecessary” given how far down the field they were.
«That is between us,” he said of the conversation.
Alonso had already labelled Lawson an “idiot” over the team radio during the sprint race before passing the RB on track during qualifying later in the day.
Asked by Autosport what happened, he replied: “Qualifying? What happened in qualifying? Because I had the scrubbed set, I was not really into a timed lap, so I didn’t want to lose more time.
“It didn’t change too much to him. But in the sprint, we fought very, very hard. He fought very hard, in my opinion, for 16th, 17th. But nothing we can do.
Liam Lawson, RB F1 Team VCARB 01, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24, Esteban Ocon, Alpine A524
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
“As long as one of the two cars lifts off, there is never an accident. So it was my case today.
“Everyone on track is behaving as he wants, and for me, today was unnecessary. You know, everyone can have different opinions. I’m OK with that. It’s 24 races, so you meet somewhere in the journey.»
Talking about the incident itself, Alonso added: “On the straight, I think we nearly crashed, like I did with Lance [Stroll] two years ago, at 300-something [km/h], and then the way he squeezed, out of the corners to the track limit itself… in lap one out of [Turn] 11.
«But I don’t want to make a big thing [out of it]. There’s no penalty when someone lifts off in [Turns] 16/17 – that was probably the biggest surprise.»
Alonso went on to qualify eighth for the race, while Lawson will start from the back of the grid after a penalty for changing engine components on the car he inherited from Ricciardo.