Alonso upset with rule book: 'Racing mistakes are not dangerous driving'

Talking to GPblog among others, Alonso talked about the Sprint with Nico Hulkenberg. Talking about his clash with the German, the Spaniard explained what he thinks is wrong with the penalty points system. "I think when penalty points were introduced, it was to avoid dangerous drivers, to keep accumulating penalties without a race ban or something. Just to avoid dangerous manoeuvres and putting anyone in danger on track. And I think now we are taking racing mistakes with dangerous driving."

Regarding the incident with Hulkenberg, the Spaniard continued: "I think maybe Nico or another driver, I don't know, in the race, made a racing mistake and you pay the price. Or you give back the position or you have 5 seconds or 10 seconds. This is a racing mistake, it will always will happen and it did happen in the past. What I don't get is the danger involved in those manoeuvres. Because there is no danger." 

Fundamentally, Alonso believes this idea is flawed: "We are taking away the incentive to try an overtaking manoeuvre. If you make a racing mistake, you will get penalised with penalty points. So it's better sometimes to stay behind because they are just promoting only DRS overtakes. Because you cannot make an attempt to pass anyone because it's going to be a penalty point for one of the two drivers. So this is for me wrong."

How can this problem be solved?

Alonso believes currently, the competition is overregulated. "We’ve never had so many rules as we have now. We cannot overtake on the pit lane. We cannot go fast on the pit lane. We cannot go slow on track. We cannot do basically anything. This is probably over-regulated and drivers, we see or we feel frustrated sometimes, teams as well. But we need to find a solution between all of us. We cannot leave the FIA alone on this," Alonso shared his opinion.