Fernando Alonso defends Russell after Verstappen ‘two-face’ jibe in F1 penalty feud
“I think George is a great driver, great person”
Fernando Alonso has defended George Russell after he was accused of being ‘two-faced’ by Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen amid the Qatar Grand Prix penalty drama.
Four-time world champion Verstappen was handed a one-place grid drop when he was deemed to have impeded Mercedes’ Russell in Qatar qualifying last weekend.
However, Verstappen was left seething with Russell’s push for a penalty as there was no precedent for handing out punishment for driving too slowly, especially as the latter wasn’t on a fast lap at the time.
This led to a fiery outburst from Verstappen in Qatar, with the Red Bull driver stating: “He always acts very nice here in front of the cameras. But when you're in there it's a completely different person. I can't stand that.”
On Thursday at the Abu Dhabi GP finale, Verstappen doubled down on his stance and said he had “no regrets” about what he said in Qatar.
When asked his views on the war of words between Verstappen and Russell, Alonso - who has often been critical of stewarding in F1 - offered a level-headed response.
“No, I don't think so,” when asked by the media, including Crash.net, if he agreed with Verstappen’s ‘two-faced’ assessment of Russell.
“I think George is a great driver, great person. I'm a good friend of George as well. I don't think that he's showing different faces here and there.
“I think it's more about what Max probably agrees with me that I said many times, that some of the penalties are a little bit not consistent in terms of if you have that one episode in Qatar and then you go to the next event and you replicate exactly the same episode, which you can replicate by yourself.
“You can induce that episode driving, then you don't get the same result in terms of penalties.
“So, that's the frustration that we sometimes have. But recently we changed the race director, we changed also some of the people in the stewards' room.
“So, hopefully all those changes are for good and to improve this consistency that we are asking.
“So we need to give them a little bit of time as well. And hopefully, here and next year, we have a more consistent and better outcomes.”
Rui Marques recently took over as F1 race director from Niels Wittich, after he stepped down from the FIA with immediate effect, with Qatar marking the former’s second race in the role.
Marques also had to pull double duty in Qatar as he fulfilled his previous role as race director for Formula 2.
