Fernando Alonso F1 ally suggests DOUBLE STANDARDS in Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen verdict

Verstappen, Hamilton, 2021, British GP, generic — Photo: © IMAGO

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Key F1 champion ally suggests DOUBLE STANDARDS in Hamilton and Verstappen verdict

Many were unhappy with the stewards' verdict

Rhys Thomas

Thursday 25 July 2024 05:00

An F1 champion's chief mechanic has suggested that the stewards have had double standards regarding two recent F1 crashes.

The first incident referenced is the collision between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton at the Hungarian Grand Prix, which saw the Dutchman momentarily airborne after hitting Hamilton's front right tire.

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The Austrian Grand Prix was the venue of another high-profile incident involving Verstappen, as he and Lando Norris came together late on to gift George Russell his second career victory.

However, it is the collision between Fernando Alonso and Zhou Guanyu in Spielberg which has drawn comparisons with the Hungary hit.

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen battled hard before colliding

Fernando Alonso ran into the back of Zhou Guanyu at the Austrian Grand Prix

Should Verstappen have been punished for his collision with Hamilton?

Verstappen blamed Hamilton but was adjudged to be at fault on commentary and by many fans, though Hamilton labelled it a racing incident and the stewards took no further action, determining that 'no driver was predominantly to blame'.

The verdict was surprising to those who felt Verstappen was out of control going into Turn 1.

In Austria, Alonso was hit with a ten-second time penalty for crashing into the back of Zhou's car at Turn 3, and the 42-year-old's chief mechanic Mikey Brown took to social media to compare the two incidents.

Fernando Alonso's chief mechanic Mikey Brown appeared to disagree with the verdicts

"[I'll] leave this here!!!" he wrote on his Instagram story, alongside an image of Alonso hitting Zhou and the Verstappen-Hamilton incident.

The picture of the Alonso-Zhou incident was accompanied with text about Alonso nearing a race ban having accumulated two penalty points for the incident, increasing his tally to eight overall. An automatic race ban is given if a driver reaches 12 in a 12-month period.

The caption of the latter crash quotes the stewards' verdict, which determined that "the driver of Car 44 could have done more to avoid the collision."

Brown appears to insinuate that the same logic was not applied to Zhou, and that the Chinese driver could have avoided the onrushing Alonso like the stewards suggested Hamilton could have regarding Verstappen.

Both Zhou and Hamilton were turning into the corner when they were hit by their rivals, who were both arriving into the turn at an excessive speed.

Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton Lando Norris George Russell Fernando Alonso Hungarian Grand Prix