Alonso contradicts Verstappen: 'Russell is a good friend of mine'
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- Estéban den Toom
Max Verstappen accused fellow driver George Russell of showing "no respect" after the Qatar Grand Prix, with the Dutchman feeling like the Englishman had lied to give him a penalty after qualifying for the Grand Prix. At the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso said he disagrees with Verstappen and thinks Russell is sincere.
"No, I don't think so," the Aston Martin driver told GPblog. "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 what Max probably agrees with me that I said many times, is that some of the penalties are a little bit inconsistent," Alonso explained.
Alonso on Verstappen's frustration
The 43-year-old Formula 1 driver thinks he knows where Verstappen's frustration lies: "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," said the Spaniard.
Finally, Alonso hopes the situation will be improved in Formula 1. "Recently, we changed race director. We also changed 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 for. So we need to give them a little bit of time as well. Hopefully here and next year, we have more consistent and better outcomes," he concluded.
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy
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