‘He’s not Spanish’ – Fernando Alonso takes latest FIA swipe after Lewis Hamilton collision in Miami

Fernando Alonso in the media pen in Miami.

Fernando Alonso quipped the FIA would not punish Lewis Hamilton for his contact with him at the start of the Sprint in Miami “because he’s not Spanish”.

Hamilton made a move up the inside at Turn 1 at the start that saw him make contact with the Aston Martin driver, who subsequently set off a chain reaction and collided with team-mate Lance Stroll and the McLaren of Lando Norris respectively – both of which were knocked out of the Sprint as a result.

Fernando Alonso: FIA unlikely to punish Lewis Hamilton ‘because he’s not Spanish’

Additional reporting by Pablo Hidalgo

Alonso trundled home as last of the finishers on the road after his impact with Hamilton, but a significant tranche of time penalties for Kevin Magnussen meant he was not the last classified finisher in the Sprint in Miami.

He had said Hamilton “arrived like a bull” at the first corner, while the Mercedes driver maintained he went for a gap that was there in the braking zone.

When asked about the incident afterwards, Alonso believes the seven-time World Champion “ruined” the Sprint for others – and the Aston Martin driver reiterated the point he made after Sprint qualifying that the 19-lap race was of no interest to him due to his belief that “we receive penalties for whatever we do.”

“Let’s see what they [the FIA] decide, I guess they won’t decide anything because he’s not Spanish,” Alonso told DAZN and Fox Sports Mexico after the Sprint in Miami in reference to Hamilton.

“I think he ruined the race of many drivers, specially to Norris who has a very fast car and he lost everything on that incident.

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“For us, we didn’t have any interest in the Sprint race. We were just going to evaluate tyre degradation and stuff for tomorrow and in the end we did it.

“For us it’s just a free practice, it’s not really a race. So now starts the important things ahead of the race: quali and the 57 laps of tomorrow.

“We can extract some conclusions out of the Sprint to make some changes on the car now that we don’t have parc fermé.”

While a time penalty was eventually handed Hamilton’s way, albeit for speeding in the pit lane instead of his perceived on-track infringement from Alonso’s perspective, it was a Sprint in which the FIA were decidedly lenient against the drivers for the most part.

Because of that, and a perceived belief they are quick to punish him, Alonso opted to complete the Sprint unscathed.

“Today those moves weren’t penalised, but they always penalise me,” he stated.

“So today I was behind Ocon, I could have tried to take the risk of overtaking but I didn’t want to risk being penalised, so I just tried to complete the 19 laps of the race and come back to the garage to talk about the changes we have to make.”