Fernando Alonso claims Lewis Hamilton didn’t get penalised “because he’s not Spanish”

Fernando Alonso believes Lewis Hamilton escaped a penalty from the F1 stewards for their Lap 1 incident in the Miami sprint race simply because he’s not Spanish.

Hamilton dived down the inside of Alonso, forcing the Spaniard into his teammate, who in turn, collided with Lando Norris.

Lance Stroll and Norris were early retirements, while Alonso suffered a puncture, dropping him down the order.

The two-time world champion was already frustrated by the F1 stewards heading into this weekend after he picked up a 10-second time penalty in the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race.

Alonso was deemed to have pushed Sainz off the track in Shanghai, picking up three penalty points in the process.

Speaking to DAZN after the sprint race in Miami, Alonso said: “We'll see what they decide. I guess they won't decide anything, because he's not Spanish.

“But, I think he ruined the race for a few people, especially Norris, who had a very fast car and he was out in that incident.”

Alonso revealed that he didn’t risk overtaking Esteban Ocon to avoid potentially being penalised again.

“Maybe today I didn't get penalised, but I always get penalised,” he added. 

“Today the same thing. I was behind Ocon, I could maybe take a risk and overtake him, but logically I don't take the risk to avoid being penalised.

“So, I tried to complete the race, which is 19 laps, and go back to the team to talk about the changes.”

Alonso continued his frustration by labelling the sprint race “a free practice” to prepare for qualifying for the grand prix.

“We didn't have any interest in the sprint race,” he explained. “We were just going to check degradation and things for tomorrow and at the end we managed it. For us it's a free practice, it's not really a race.

“Now, the important part of the race starts, the qualifying and tomorrow the 57 laps. I think we can draw a conclusion from this sprint for the parc ferme that opens now and see if we can improve the car a little bit.”