Lance Stroll said he left Fernando Alonso enough toom to avoid a collision when the pair made contact during the United States Grand Prix, triggering a spectacular crash.
Alonso hit Stroll’s left-rear which launched his Alpine into the air. He landed and struck a barrier but was able to continue.Stroll’s race came to an end, however, as he spun to a stop in the middle of the track where other cars dodged around him, fortunately without striking his car. The Aston Martin driver said it was a disappointing end to his race which had begun promisingly.
“It was a good start to the race,” he said. “Everything was feeling good in the car.
“We were in a good position in third and then the contact with Fernando was a shame. It was close wheel-to-wheel racing and unfortunately just made contact.”
Alonso was closing on Stroll at the exit of turn 11 when the race restarted following the first Safety Car period. As the Alpine moved left to overtake, Stroll went the same way, and the two collided.
The stewards are investigating the collision between the two. Stroll believes Alonso could have done more to avoid the crash.
“It’s not like I hit him on the side of his car, the impact was still his front wing to the rear of my car,” he said. “And I gave him plenty of room on the left of the track.
“It’s not like I squeezed him or anything like that against the wall. He could have moved earlier and went more to the left. He didn’t have to get too close to me either. So there’s a lot of different ways they could look at the incident.”
Although the tangle caused a spectacular incident, Stroll said “there wasn’t actually a big impact” for him. “It was just a lot of spinning around. I didn’t hit anything hard, luckily.”
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Leroy (@g-funk)
23rd October 2022, 23:40
This is a pattern with Stroll that he doesn’t seem to be learning from. He just doesn’t seem to be spatially aware of the drivers around him and it’s caused some big accidents over the years. Hopefully he learns the lesson before someone is hurt.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
24th October 2022, 10:17
Stroll seems to have some strange inconsistency with spacial awareness. He is often excellent on lap one. Making multiple clean moves on drivers while keeping out of trouble. Excluding hungary last year admittedly.
But he’s often been good on lap one his whole career, with seemingly good spacial awareness when there are many cars around him. His start in the previous race was amazing as he took a dry line and a bold attempt of going far faster than the others really close to the pit wall and made up many places. Even back in his williams days he had many great starts.
His problem seems to be when he’s with just one other driver. He often doesn’t look in his mirrors and just takes the exact same line as he would if nobody was there. He does drive a bit like there are only other drivers on track at the start of the race, and then he seems good. Not sure why his awareness seems to change so much.
SHR Modding
23rd October 2022, 23:45
It was a racing incident, I don’t think penalties should be handed out, but I do think stroll is more to blame here for reacting to alonso rather than just defending his line. Usually the car ahead dictates where the car behind goes but stroll waited for alonso to decide where to go and then quickly jinked the same way.
Amazing recovery for alonso afterwards even if he got piped at the end. Was looking an easy 6th place before the incident.
Stroll had the quali of his life and really showed vettel up. But vettel had much better race pace
Good race overall
Hiland (@flyingferrarim)
24th October 2022, 0:07
That is not a racing incident. Stroll made a late move to block. Stroll has had a history showing his lack of awareness and some of these incidents puts him and others at unnecessary risk.
With that said he had a super qually and was running very competitively in the race.
petebaldwin (@)
24th October 2022, 0:36
If Stroll waited for Alonso to decide where to go and then moved, that’s a block which isn’t allowed and that’ll be why he’s been penalised and given a grid penalty for next race. With DRS, you can’t just wait for the car in front to commit and then block them off or you’ll get a lot more accidents like we saw today.
Bojangles
23rd October 2022, 23:50
Stroll 100% to blame. No discussion about it.
Michael
24th October 2022, 0:23
That collision wasnt about space it was about time. It was too late in the move and too early on the straight to be worth defending. However I think normally Alonso would have just been able to drive round him but he had to countersteer towards Stroll to keep control. So basically the defending was too late in general but would not normally cause an accident however given the track conditions the collision happened. I guess that’s why the penalty was quite mild. But as they have been driving all weekend Stroll should know the conditions.
Hiland (@flyingferrarim)
24th October 2022, 0:26
What conditions are you talking about?
petebaldwin (@)
24th October 2022, 0:38
The only blame I’d put on Alonso is that he put way too much trust in Stroll. He should have pulled out earlier and played it safer. There are some drivers that you can go wheel to wheel with but Alonso should know better than to do that with some drivers.
MacLeod (@macleod)
24th October 2022, 8:34
+1
AlanD
24th October 2022, 1:58
Yes Stroll gave Alonso plenty of room. Trouble is, it was vertical, not lateral. I wasn’t impressed by Stroll’s move.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
24th October 2022, 6:25
What kind of argument is that? he moved perfectly in time, that’s what you do, tuck behind and move at the last possible time. You don’t think for a moment that the driver ahead will REACT to your move because you’re already coming that way.
And why would he move more to the left? that penalizes you, you go way on the dirty side and it makes life difficult for the next corner.
This guy deserves a raceban purely because he doesn’t seem to even understand what he did wrong. He’s lucky no one T-boned him yesterday…
superman
24th October 2022, 7:39
How can the FIA ever be serious about safety when they allow low skilled drivers like Stroll and Latifi to continue crashing and taking others out with only minor to no consequences?
A race ban is the only suitable punishment for meat heads like Stroll. If he’d killed Alonso, which could easily have happened, would be still only be getting a tap on the wrist?
Sviat
24th October 2022, 11:25
Looks like Stroll tried to say to Alonso “Next year, don’t even try to be in front of me”.
Three-place grid penalty is ridiculous. Blocking your opponent must be strictly prohibited as it leads to huge crashes and even more potential danger (tractor and people on the track; although in dry conditions everything should be fine).
It’s not true that racers don’t know sometimes where the other driver is. They always know; some of the drivers are simply too arrogant to care and they believe that everyone should move aside. (I drive in sports karting, and I always know where the other guy is when I am fighting for a position.)
There’s also nothing wrong with how Alonso tried to overtake. Usually you come really close to the racer and then go on the inside in the very last moment to have higher speed. That’s how DRS “overtakes” were done in this race, too.
Stroll could have waved a little bit to break the flow and make it more difficult. But instead he turned his ego to the maximum.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th October 2022, 11:26
His fault entirely. Unnecessarily late reactionary move.
Alesici
27th October 2022, 8:06
Considering how close came to killing Alonso, this penalty is extremely light. I’m surprised how infrequent accidents are like these, as it nearly happens all the time. But his defence of ‘leaving plenty of room’, and the light penalty, point towards a gap in the regulations which allow these dangerously late moves to be done.
Currently the rule is that the car ahead can move all the way across the track unless the car behind has any part of their car alongside any part of the car ahead, and in that case the car ahead have to leave a car width to the track edge. Perhaps a rule should be added whereby the car ahead can’t move into the future path of the car behind (assuming it carries along its current path) at such a time that the car behind has insufficient time to react considering the limitations of human reaction times. This depends of course on the closing speed and the degree to which the car ahead intrudes into the car behind’s future path, so there is some judgement required by the stewards. But right now, I don’t believe that Stroll’s potentially deadly move actually broke any regulations, so I think there needs to be a change to those regulations.