Fernando Alonso: ‘Lewis Hamilton has done this before…against Nico Rosberg’

Fernando Alonso compared his and Lewis Hamilton’s opening-lap collision at the Belgian Grand Prix to a similar incident involving the Briton and Nico Rosberg.

The two came together at Les Combes where the Mercedes driver attempted to go around the outside of the Alpine man, only to not give Alonso enough space on the exit.

Hamilton was temporarily hoisted into the air and the resulting impact on the ground caused enough damage to force the seven-time former World Champion to retire.

The two spent a season in the same team at McLaren in 2007, but there was no love lost between the former team-mates as Alonso reacted angrily over the radio.

He labelled Hamilton an “idiot”before saying he only knew how to drive fast when he started in first – something he has yet to do this season.

Hamilton, to his credit, did not rise to the bait andtook full responsibility for the collisionbefore saying“it’s nice to know how he feels about me”having heard Alonso’s comments.

Alonso also had more words to say after he finished the race in P5, recalling a similar incident with Hamilton and another of his previous team-mates, Nico Rosberg, in 2014.

“I think for me it was a little bit of a mistake from his side to close the door like this in turn five,” said Alonso,as reported by GPFans.com. “We have seen many times it goes parallel there.

“他和罗斯伯格之间发生相同的有限公司uple of years ago, so this time it was the same thing.”

Drama on the opening lap at Spa!#BelgianGP#F1pic.twitter.com/R2oP9Gm13P

— Formula 1 (@F1)August 28, 2022

The 41-year-old had seemingly cooled down from his heat-of-the-moment comments during the race, saying these things happen during the opening lap of a grand prix.

“At that corner especially, there are a lot of things that are going on and people normally cut the corner at [turn] six and rejoin the track at seven, so it’s a tricky part of the circuit for sure,” said Alonso.

“And it was a racing incident, nothing to say, but I’m just sad because when I start P2 or P3, always these things happen and when I’m 12th or 13th, I have a clean race.

“I wanted to have a clean race and unfortunately we started already with this incident and then we had a very aggressive strategy of stopping very early every time.

“I don’t think it was the smartest one but in the end top five…it makes a good weekend for us.”

Hamilton was warned by the stewards for initially refusing to go to the medical centreand only went after he and Mercedes had been warned of possible further punishments.