Alonso receives qualifying penalties 04 Aug 2006
Hungarian Grand Prix stewards have penalised world champion Fernando Alonso for an incident involving Red Bull’s Robert Doornbos during Friday practice at the Hungaroring.
Alonso gesticulated at Doornbos, whom he felt had held him up, and then appeared to deliberately weave and slow his Renault in front of the Dutchman’s car during the afternoon’s session.
Stewards Tony Scott Andrews, Antonio Vasconcelos Tavares and Lajos Herczeg decided that Alonso’s actions were “unnecessary, unacceptable and dangerous”, and awarded him a one second time penalty to be applied to his fastest lap time in each of the qualifying sessions, Q1, Q2 and Q3.
Additionally, Alonso received a similar penalty for overtaking another car after the session had finished, under waved yellow flags.
He will thus get an aggregated cumulative penalty of two seconds in Q1, Q2 and Q3, effectively damning his chances on a circuit on which overtaking is virtually impossible.
