The Australian Grand Prix ended with a bang. George Russell finished in the wall and ensured that Mercedes recorded a rare zero score. Afterwards, Fernando Alonso was severely punished for the incident. Rightly so, says Robert Doornbos, who also reflected on the drama of Mercedes as a team.
Doornbos paid extensive attention to Mercedes in his analysis at Ziggo Sport’s Race Café. “This summed up Mercedes’ weekend,” said the analyst on George Russell’s crash. “It is dramatic that you simply go home with two retirements,” says Doornbos about the German manufacturer, which initially fell to fifth place behind Aston Martin, but regained fourth place after Alonso’s penalty.
Hamilton the slumped shoulders
While Russell was still fighting for sixth place until his crash, Lewis Hamilton dropped out of Q2 in qualifying. “Hamilton is not having an off-day, but an off-season, and it’s only going to get worse,” Doornbos said. ‘He gets beaten in qualifying, in the race his car breaks down, and the motivation is gone. Pit report Jack Plooij sees Mercedes’ courage sinking further and further. “When you see Hamilton standing in the square, it looks like he has been knocked out,” says Plooij.
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Doornbos then returns to Russell’s crash, who immediately asked for a red flag. Doornbos understands that. ‘Out of fear for his own life, but also: I have now written off the car, so it would suit me quite well if a red flag was raised now. Then the race result goes back one lap, and he still takes a few points,” says Doornbos. Alonso also did the same a year earlier in Australia, when he also lost ground during the chaotic restarts, but was still allowed to take the podium.
Doornbos cracks the FIA
Although Doornbos accuses Russell of a hidden motive, the Rotterdammer believes that the Brit was right. ‘They are too slow with this. I thought a Virtual Safety Car was insufficient here.’ The gentlemen at the table think that it was mainly commercial considerations, as many do not like to end a race under a red flag. From a sporting point of view, it can also be explained that Russell was no longer supposed to score points after his mistake, which would have happened in the event of a red flag.
Alonso plays the murdered innocence
Doornbos points the finger at Alonso in the accident. “He brakes three hundred meters earlier,” says the former driver, somewhat exaggeratedly. ‘Then he brakes again. That’s why Russell suddenly caught up so fast. You try to get a good exit, that’s possible. But if you cause a crash, questions will arise, and then the FIA asks: can we look at the data? Data never lies,” Doornbos blames the incident on Alonso.
This can also be seen in the tweet below. The blue line on the right shows that Alonso took off the gas early and then applied the brakes again. Alonso himself then mainly talked about a problem with his accelerator pedal, which would remain stuck. “If you then give an Oscar-worthy act to your team, and shout that you have problems with the accelerator, but he didn’t have that,” Doornbos continues. “The FIA also saw that and said: you’re talking.”
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‘The FIA simply says: can we see the data? It simply goes forty kilometers per hour slower, so the closing rate is enormous. Then he also switches back.’ It is also not the first time that Alonso has done a brake test with a competitor. At the Nürburgring in 2003, Alonso eliminated McLaren driver David Coulthard with an extreme brake test, or in other words: an old fox does not lose his tricks. ‘Pushing and pulling is part of it, but this goes too far,’ says Doornbos.
