Fernando Alonso defends Carlos Sainz after FIA handed him a 5-seconds penalty: “We don’t go intentionally…”

Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso came to the defense of fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz after the stewards handed the Ferrari driver a five-second penalty for crashing into the two-time world champion at the F1 Australian GP.

Sainz and Alonso tangled with each other while fighting for P3 in Turn 1 following the final restart of a chaotic race at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne.

Sainz was visibly frustrated with the stewards' decision to penalize him, which saw him drop from P4 to P12, for the incident during his post-race interviews.

Speaking to the media, including The Race, Alonso said:

“Obviously, I didn’t know who touched me in that moment, I just felt [it]. In lap one of the first start, someone touched me in Turn 3 and then in the last restart Carlos apparently touched me in Turn 1. Probably only [in] Jeddah I had the normal start, in Bahrain also in Turn 4 Lance touched me into Turn 4 so, yeah, I’m very attractive out there. But our car is strong enough, so it doesn’t matter if they keep touching us."

He added:

“Probably the penalty is too harsh because on lap one it is very difficult always to judge what the grip level is and I think we don’t go intentionally into another car because we know that we risk also our car and our final position. So sometimes you ended up in places that you wish you were not there in that moment. And it’s just part of racing. I didn’t see the replay properly, but for me, it feels too harsh.”

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"We had a rollercoaster of emotions today" - Fernando Alonso on his Australian GP experience

Fernando Alonso continued his impressive start to the season as he finished on the podium for the third consecutive race. In his post-race interview, he mentioned that the race was a rollercoaster for him given its chaotic nature.

Speaking to F1.com, he said:

“We had a rollercoaster of emotions today. Many things going on at the beginning, but then also at the end. The last half an hour was difficult to understand what was going on. But the race itself, was good for us in terms of pace. I think Mercedes was very fast, and Lewis did an incredible job today… I tried to force a mistake from Lewis all race long, [I] tried to get close, but he drove fantastically well, as the champion he is, and no mistakes."

It would have been interesting to see if Alonso could have challenged Lewis Hamilton in the final laps without Sainz's contact.