I've heard Alonso's engineer specifically told him through radio to wait.
So Alonso and his engineer are cheats? Although to be fair to Alonso's chief manager, it appears he held Alonso after his pit stop for 20 seconds, or at least that's when his lollipop man gave Alonso the go ahead. Had Alonso left then, and not waited an additional 10 seconds, Hamilton would have easily made it in time to do his final hot lap.
For the record:
Alonso starts his pit stop with 2'15" left in the Q3 session.
The stop is finished in 7 seconds.
Despite finishing the stop, "someone" told the lollipop man to keep him there for another 20 seconds but no one is doing anything to the car.
7 seconds after Hamilton slowly pulls in behind Alonso, the lollipop man finally lifts the lollipop... but amazingly Alonso stays put for another 10 seconds before finally pulling out and letting Hamilton start his pit with only 1'33" left in qualifying!!!!
What makes it all the more incredulous is that by waiting those 30 extra seconds, instead of coming out of the pits well ahead of Kimi, Alonso came out of the pits right in front of Kimi so he had to immediately slow down and let Kimi pass and continued to slow down behind Kimi in order to get clean air and warm up his tires and give himself the opportunity to post the fastest lap.
Truly unbelievable situation, and at the very least yet another example of Alonso's, incredibly poor sportsmanship! 👎👎
As a fan, frankly I feel cheated by Alonso. I was a huge fan of his during the 2005 season and had high hopes for him after that. In 2006 he really began to show his dark side, constantly complaining and whining about this or that, and making childish remarks and antics towards other drivers. I had hoped things would be different when he was fortunate enough to win the 2006 championship and start fresh with a new team, but obviously this is not the case, and he only seems to be getting worse!
What started out as a great F1 season, in fact one of the best in some time, has for me at least been seriously tainted by the unprofessional antics of Alonso and the dark shadow of doubt that surrounds McLaren and their having been caught with all that Ferrari data.
No matter what happens from here on out, there will always be doubt in my mind as to the authenticity of this years F1 results, and if Alonso wins the championship after pulling a stunt like this on his own teammate then I may just take a break from supporting F1 for a while.
👎
