Alonso apologises to Schumacher for Turkey F1 collision

After being spun by Pierre Gasly on the opening lap, Alonso found himself well down the order.

Running in 16th, Alonso tried to overtake Schumacher into Turn 4, but they made contact with the Spaniard’s front-left wheel hitting Schumacher’s right-rear.

The stewards handed Alonso a five-second penalty for the incident and two penalty points - the first points he’s picked up on his super licence since returning to F1 at the start of the year.

Alonso was apologetic after the race and was seen hugging Schumacher in the media pen.

“We touched each other, unfortunately he had the spin and I got the penalty,” Alonso said. “I take it of course, because I’m sorry to have the collision with him. That happened only because I was P14, I should not have been, but the luck seems to keep avoiding us this year big time, so I guess we are accommodating a lot for next year.”

Giving his view on the incident with Gasly on Lap 1, he said: “I don’t know, I didn’t see it on TV, so I think the first corner is always difficult in these conditions. We were nearly for the first time on these wet tyres at the start all together, so these things can happen. Unfortunately it happened for us when we are top five, but I hope there are chaotic races next time when we are behind but not when we are at the front.”

After qualifying fifth, Alonso was ‘frustrated’ and ‘disappointed’ he couldn’t make the most of his highest grid position since 2014.

“It’s frustrating that when we are not competitive we have a very boring race, and when we are competitive we have crazy weather and crazy things happening,” he added. “We’ve been historically this year a little bit less competitive on the intermediate tyres, and the whole race was intermediate, we didn’t even put the dry tyres on, so we need to improve our competitive level also on that compound. But it’s frustrating and disappointing.”