Fernando Alonso has been handed a five-second penalty that drops him from seventh to ninth place in the Canadian Grand Prix after he was found to have changed direction too many times.
Front-row starter Alonso was defending seventh from Valtteri Bottas in the closing laps of the race, but his movements while attempting to keep the position on the penultimate lap between the hairpin and the final chicane landed him in hot water with the stewards.
Two hours after the race – shortly after meeting with Alonso and Bottas – the stewards decided Alonso had made too many changes of direction while defending and that those actions warranted a penalty.
“The stewards heard from the driver of car #14 [Fernando Alonso], the driver of car #77 [Valtteri Bottas] and team representatives and examined video evidence and telemetry from car #77,” the statement read.
“Between Turns 10 and 12, on the penultimate lap of the race, car #14 made repeated changes of direction to defend against car #77 who had to lift at one point and briefly lost momentum.
“Whilst noting the driver’s point that at no stage was any point of car #77 alongside car #14, the stewards consider this to be a clear breach of the regulation.
“The stewards therefore impose a five-second time penalty.”
The stewards said the penalty “was in line with” the five-second penalty Lance Stroll was issued in Melbourne earlier in the year when he was deemed to have made too many changes in direction.
Ironically the driver Stroll was defending against in that case was also Bottas.
Unlike Alonso, who drops from seventh to ninth in the classification, Stroll did not however lose any positions and was still classified in the 12th place he finished in.
Alonso’s penalty promotes the Alfa duo of Bottas and Zhou Guanyu into seventh and eighth places respectively.
It also means that Alpine and Alfa – who are in the fight with McLaren for fourth in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship – both scored 10 points in Montreal.
