Stroll given three-place grid penalty for Alonso crash
Stroll and Alonso - who will become teammates at Aston Martin next season - were involved in a scary high-speed clash when they came together on the back straight on Lap 22.
After tagging the back of Stroll when the Aston Martin driver jinked late in defence, Alonso’s Alpine was sent airborne and suffered a big impact when his car hit the ground.
Alonso and Stroll come together #USGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/H8Wbs0GaXL
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 23, 2022
Stroll was forced to retire on the spot, while Alonso remarkably went on to finish seventh.
The incident was reviewed by the COTA stewards, who deemed Stroll to be “predominately to blame”.
"It was clear to us that the driver of Car 18 [Stroll] made a late move in reacting to the overtaking attempt by the driver of Car 14 [Alonso] by moving to the left. The stewards determine that the driver of Car 18 was predominantly to blame,” they noted in a statement.
Stroll gave Alonso ‘plenty of room’
Prior to the post-race investigation, Stroll insisted he had given Alonso “plenty of room”
"I mean, I definitely moved late, but there was a big difference in speed," the Canadian explained.
"I was judging more or less, kind of picking where he was behind me. But it's not like I hit him on the side of his car. The impact is still his front wing to the rear of my car.
"I gave him plenty of room on the left of the track, so it's not like I squeezed him or anything like that against a wall. He could have moved earlier and went more to the left. He didn't have to get so close to me either.
"So, there's a lot of different ways you could look at the incident.”
Two-time world champion Alonso described the crash as a “racing incident” and refused to pin the blame on Stroll.
"Honestly, when you see the thing on the TV it is a racing incident,” he said.
"We move at the same time to the left and that was the trigger of everything. I think it was very unfortunate for everyone.
"We were OK in the stewards' room. I think it was more between our sporting directors than between us. I think we saw the incident with the same eyes and our sporting directors were seeing it with completely different eyes!
"When you are at 300 (km/h) those movements... in one tenth of a second you move 200 meters. So if you see it in slow motion and you go frame-by-frame he will move a little bit later than me.
"If you go normal speed, you see both cars more or less at the same time. That's why after looking on TV I think there's nothing you can do differently."
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