Fernando Alonso felt that the FIA made a «gross error» in the way it swiftly brought out the red flag for Yuki Tsunoda’s qualifying crash at Formula 1’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
Tsunoda crashed at the exit of Turn 5 during the closing stages of Q3, with just two minutes and 23 seconds remaining in the session.
With Tsunoda’s medical light having been triggered automatically by the impact, which necessitates the instant dispatch of the medical car, plus there being debris left on the track, race control acted swiftly to bring out the red flag. It took just a little more than 10 seconds for Q3 to be stopped.
That call meant that no driver could finish their laps, even if they were past the incident.
This annoyed Alonso because he was on a quicker lap at the time the red flag was called, which could have potentially lifted him further up the grid.
The situation was especially hard for Alonso to accept because of what he claims is a verbal agreement among teams and the FIA that if cars run off track early in a lap, then double yellows will be waved rather than a red flag.
This means any cars that have not come across the incident will have to abort their laps, but it does not penalise drivers who are long past the incident.
Speaking to Spanish TV station DAZN, Alonso said: ‘In Q3… The FIA sometimes gets it right and sometimes makes gross errors.
«Today they made one, because they red-flagged when I was in the last corner, which is surprising. When there is an accident at Turn 8 [he meant Turn 5] they normally wait for the cars to complete their laps, or that’s the spoken rule.»
But Motorsport.com understands that, while the double yellow stance is the preference in terms of dealing with cars off track, the requirement of the medical car and the scale of the incident meant that it was felt a red flag was more appropriate.
Parc ferme issue
Alonso’s irritation at how the session ended also further grew when, after aborting his lap and returning to the pits, he was waved into parc ferme by officials.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin F1 Team
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
He and team-mate Lance Stroll, who was running on the track behind him, both stopped their cars in the area at the start of the pitlane where a car from the new Apple F1 film was positioned.
Alonso managed to remove his steering wheel and undid his belts before officials told him that he needed to get moving again.
He added: «Going into the pitlane, Lance and I were put into parc ferme, they closed the pitlane and put us into parc ferme.
«We got out of the car, then they told us that Q3 was going to restart. We got back in the car, they buckled us in, and because I had no more tyres, I didn’t go out again.»
It is understood that the decision by officials to wave Alonso and Stroll into parc ferme was because the early communication was that the session would not be able to restart after Tsunoda’s red flag — and the Aston Martins were there so soon after the red flag was called.
However, with race control quickly realising that the stricken RB could be retrieved and there was enough time for cars to complete another flying lap, it was communicated that cars could return to their garages so the two ARM24s were told to move.
Alonso suggested that the double whammy of incidents ultimately made no difference to his grid position, but was still something he struggled to understand.
«I had been improving by a tenth and a half until that last corner when the red flag came out and it probably doesn’t change anything,» he said.
«But this going into the parc ferme, then opening it again and that doesn’t normally happen.»