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Lance Stroll has been handed a three-place grid penalty following his crash with Fernando Alonso during the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
Stroll was judged to have moved too late in defending an overtaking move from the Alpine as they headed down the back straight at the Circuit of The Americas.
Alonso made contact with the left-rear wheel of the Aston Martin, launching himself while Stroll was sent spinning into the barrier.
Stewards heard from both drivers post-race before handing the Canadian a three-place penalty and two points on his licence, bringing his 12-month total to five.
“It was clear to us that the driver of Car 18 made a late move in reacting to the overtaking attempt by the driver of Car 14 by moving to the left,” the Stewards report noted.
“The stewards determine that the driver of Car 18 was predominantly to blame.”
While Stroll was forced out of the race as a result of the incident, Alonso carried on and ultimately finished seventh.
“With us already a few times this year to be honest, you know, we had always contacts with people,” the two-time world champion noted post-race.
“[Lewis] Hamilton in Spa with me, I think it was Yuki [Tsunoda] with Esteban [Ocon] in Paul Ricard; every one that crashed with an Alpine is immediate DNF for them!
“But yeah, hopefully, we don’t test it again.
“It was not nice, because when you are in the air, obviously you are not aware of where you are on track,” he added of the incident with Stroll.
“I thought that I was much more on the left, and obviously if you catch the lateral fence, the metallic one, then you spin in the air 360 – you see these kinds of accidents a lot in IndyCar, and they are quite dangerous.
“So I thought that I was ending up on that fence.
“Then, when the car landed on track I felt ‘okay, this is all safe. The car for sure is going to be broken but you know this is what it is’.
“I drove slowly to the pit thinking that we will retire the car – I was surprised when they changed the tyres and the front wing and sent me out.
“I said ‘okay, it’s just a test, but they will call me in next lap or whatever’, but the car apparently was okay.
“When they checked it visually, everything was fine, so we kept going.”
Alonso then ran to the end of the race with the tyre fitted in that stop, rising to seventh in the process.
However, he now faces a post-race protest from Haas which is aggrieved that neither he, nor Sergio Perez, received the black and orange flag for damage on their respective cars.
The results, therefore, remain provisional as that process takes place with the Stewards.
