Hamilton - Alonso Battle Could Have Gotten 'Embarrassing' And 'Dangerous'

Wednesday, 29 November 2023 at 20:00

Updated at Wednesday, 29 November 2023 at 22:42

Former F1 driver and eight-time Grand Prix winner Mark Webber commented on the incident between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso during the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The two world champions, Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso and Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, almost collided as a result of the controversial incident at Yas Marina Circuit last week.

The Spanish matador came out of the pits through turn number four right ahead of Hamilton, who followed him closely going into turn five.

What the seven-time World Champion might not have expected was that Alonso would lift earlier than was needed, and he almost went into the back of the Aston Martin driver. Mark Webber analyzed the incident for Channel 4 as he said:

"This is a bit personal. We know that these two have a lot of history. Down to the DRS, so they’re basically playing, Fernando was trying to manipulate the DRS point, obviously they’re into the activation onto this long back straight."

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Webber suggested Alonso was trying to mess a little bit with the seven-time World Champion as he knew he would give him DRS on the next straight.

The onboard of the Spaniard's car shows he went a bit off track and almost into the wall as he was looking into his mirror during the maneuver and Webber thinks we weren't too far from witnessing an even more dangerous incident.

"And when we go onboard, watch Fernando in the mirror, he’s looking, he’s looking, so long, he’s actually off the track, he’s lifting. That could have got quite embarrassing, but also, [it was] a bit dangerous."

On the other hand, we might also say Alonso went as far to the right as possible to let Hamilton overtake him before the DRS detection point which would also make sense.

Funnily enough, Alonso commented on the incident with Hamilton, saying, "[Lewis] has a lot of experience, but I have more." Do you think Alonso's maneuver was over the line?