Alonso pays price after Russell flips

FERNANDO ALONSO was accused of “erratic and potentially dangerous” driving which caused

George Russell’s Mercedes to smash into a wall and flip on to its side.

Russell crashed out of the Melbourne race as he pushed to catch Alonso (above, right) on the penultimate lap at Albert Park. But the Aston Martin racer braked early heading into a corner which caught the Briton by surprise.

Russell (above, left) lost control and ploughed into a wall before his car came to rest on its side in the middle of the track (right). He was unhurt but the stewards took a dim view of Alonso’s driving, even though their cars did not touch.

The stewards said data had shown Alonso lifted off the throttle more than 100m earlier than he had done at that corner on any previous lap.

The Spaniard was slapped with a 20-second time penalty which dropped him from sixth to eighth in the final standings.

Russell said: “I was right behind him for many laps, was half-a-second behind approaching the corner and then, suddenly, he slowed up very dramatically before going back on the power.”

That crash, and Lewis Hamilton’s engine failure, meant Mercedes left Australia with zero points for their efforts. They sit fourth in the championship with just 26 points from three races. Hamilton’s DNF compounded his underwhelming results of just seventh and ninth from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

“This is the worst start of the season I’ve ever had,” the glum seven-time world champion said. Pole-sitter Max Verstappen only managed four laps before a brake fire melted the rearright corner of his Red Bull, forcing him to retire.

But the 26-year-old still leads the driver’s championship and it was his first DNF in two years, since a fuel leak ended his

2022 race in Melbourne.

He said: “You never like to see it happen – but it’s more important now that we understand why it happened.”