Fernando Alonso apologised to FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem for accusing the stewards of the Miami Grand Prix of “incompetence.”
This comes after the Alpine driver was penalised after the Miami Grand Prix following an infraction he made by bypassing a chicane and failing to cede the advantage he had gained. He was slapped with two five-second time penalties, the second of which was issued post-race and knocked him out of the points.
The Spaniard blasted the stewards who handed him the penalty claiming they are “not very professional” ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix. However, the accusations landed him in trouble with the FIA and he was looking at receiving a fine for the negative comments.
FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem was seen conversing with Alonso in the Barcelona paddock on Friday after Alonso’s comments drew his notice. After clarifying his issues with Ben Sulayem after the Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso sympathised with the stewards.
“We talked during the week as well,” Alonso explained. “I’m a very good friend of Mohammed and I have a lot of trust, especially Mohammed, in how he’s handled the FIA and all the changes that he’s making and all the things that he wants to improve.”
“I fully support what he’s doing and his ideas.”
“Reflecting from Miami and from Thursday here, maybe I see it in a different way now. They did their job in Miami and, yeah, we see things differently maybe from the car and from the heat of the moment.”
“So I think we all work together, to improve the show and today, for example, the fans saw a super race and we are all here to help the show.”
“Yeah, for sure,” Alonso said when asked if he had apologised to Ben Sulayem for his remarks. “To Mohammed in particular.”
Following an engine penalty in the Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso battled his way through the field to ninth place at the finish line, his first points since the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
“I’m very happy. Obviously, finishing in the points is always a target every weekend,” the double world champion said.
“For us, after the bad qualifying yesterday, the decision to change the engine overnight was like sacrificing this weekend. Knowing that, it was very difficult to get points.
“So now that we got this P9, it feels like a victory nearly and it feels good. Hopefully we can start from here maybe five, eight, 10 consecutive races in the points, which is what we need.”
