Alonso Aiming for Masi Talks over Lap One, Turn One Advantages at Circuit of the Americas

Fernando Alonso says he will not bring up the move that saw Kimi Räikkönen overtake him with all four wheels off the track during the United States Grand Prix when the drivers meet FIA race director Michael Masi this Friday, but he is looking to bring up why drivers were not penalised for running off track at turn one on lap one at the Circuit of the Americas.

Looking back at the race in the United States, Alonso says the decision not to penalise Räikkönen was questionable, and he still believes the Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN driver should have given the place back to the Alpine F1 Team racer.

“When you pass outside the circuit you normally give up the position,” Alonso is quoted as saying by racefans.net. “If we bring this topic to the drivers’ meeting we will have the same answer so we will not bring it.

“I think if you are talking [about] football and you take the ball inside the area with your hands it will be a penalty so you don’t need to bring this to every match. Every time you touch the ball with your hands in the penalty area it’s going to be a penalty, every match.”

However, Alonso’s main concern regarding the race in Austin is the fact that drivers were able to run off-track at the exit of turn one on the opening lap and potentially gain an advantage without being penalised, with kerbing being removed earlier in the weekend after issues in Formula 4 races.

“The meeting is tomorrow so I’m open to listen whatever they want to say,” said the Spaniard. “But this is exactly what I don’t want [to] happen. I think there are many other things we should discuss in that meeting, like lap one.”

“They removed the bumps on the outside after the problem with F4 or wherever, the car that launched outside of turn one, and there were three or four cars going wide in turn one. So, I would love to talk about those cars as we talked in Sochi.”

Alonso says the talks between drivers and Masi are usually very productive, and he is expecting Friday’s chat to be just as constructive, and he hopes a solution can be found to prevent a repeat of the issues.

“Obviously the answers are always very constructive and very positive because we all want to race as fair as possible,” he said. “We try to address all the problems because sometimes it’s not only the drivers’ input of the race itself it’s just the nature of the circuit.

“In Sochi you will always have more problems than Silverstone or different circuits. We try to work together for a better solution so let’s see.

“It’s just trying to race fair and put a good show for the people in the grandstands and on TV. We have a lot of fans around the world and we saw at the race in Austin how fantastic it was to witness the grandstands full of people, et cetera. So you try to put a fair show for everybody.”