What Happened Between Lawson And Alonso? 'He Said He Would Screw Me'
F1
Liam Lawson and Fernando Alonso went through a few tense moments on and off track during the 2024 United States Grand Prix. Here is what happened.
Liam Lawson, for whom it is his first Grand Prix weekend as a full-time F1 driver (after replacing Daniel Ricciardo), had a three-lap long battle with Fernando Alonso during the Sprint race in Austin.
The 22-year-old went elbows out, and Alonso did not like the extent to which the New Zealander went in defending him. The 42-year-old felt that he was blocked and that the youngster left him no room. He suggested that he would have collided with Lawson if he hadn't braked at certain moments.
After the moment when the Aston Martin driver and the VCARB driver came closest to crashing, Alonso shouted on the radio: "Man, this Alphatauri (former name of VCARB) driver is such an idiot!"
While the two provided an incredible show for F1 fans, Alonso was indeed not happy with the way it played out. He said, as per Motorsport.com:
"In the sprint, we fought very, very hard. He fought very hard, in my opinion, for 16th, 17th. But you know, nothing we can do."
"On the straight, I think we nearly crashed, like I did with Lance [Stroll] two years ago, at 300-something [km/h], and then the way he squeezed, out of the corners, you know, to the track limit itself. You know, in lap one out of 11."
Alonso was disappointed that Lawson received no penalty for his driving just because he braked to avoid the collision with the VCARB driver.
"But as I said, I don't want to make a big thing. There's, of course, no penalty when someone lifts off in 16/17 – that was probably the biggest surprise."
The two were spotted having a chat as they walked through the Parc Ferme after sprint, and it was clear they were not on the same page in relation to who was at fault.
In the Qualifying session that followed a few hours after the Sprint race, Alonso sent a dive down the inside on Lawson on their way out of the pits into turn number 1, which seemed like a small revenge from the Spaniard. Asked about what happened, Lawson said after the qualifying:
"I don't know, he said he would screw me, and I guess he kept his word."
"He was really upset, I'm not sure why. We were racing for P16 and I don't know why he was so upset. Yeah, I don't know. It is what it is. Hopefully, he can get over it, and we'll move forward."
"Just out of the box playing games. It is what it is, it's part of it - it doesn't bother me."
"I understand he had a pretty horrible race so I can understand why he's upset. But if I did anything wrong, I'd have got a penalty. So, yeah…"
When asked whether he thought there could be some sort of rivalry developing between him and the double world champ, Lawson said:
"I don't think we have a rivalry! We just had an incident in the race, and we can just get over it and move forward."
Lawson saying "He said he would screw me," suggested Alonso warned him during their tense exchange after the sprint. When the Aston Martin driver was asked about that chat, he said: "That is between us." In relation to what happened in the qualifying, he added:
"Qualifying? What happened in qualifying? Ah, well, because I had the scrubbed set, I was not really into a timed lap, so I didn't want to lose more time. And I think it didn't change too much to him."
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