Agreed. Another example was the 10 second penalty to Ricciardo today, rather than the almost universal 5 second penalty. Especially strange since he had left more than enough room on the outside for Tsunoda to make the corner, if he had seen him. Of course, at the time they gave him 10 seconds, it looked as if that would be enough to keep him behind Ocon and Alonso - and it so nearly was.
Some complained that the penalty the FIA initially imposed on Alonso at COTA was in order to favour a British driver ( Noriris ) in a British car ( McLaren ) over a Spanish driver in a French car in their close battle for 4th place in the constructor’s championship. Was this an effort to counter that suggestion and favour Alpine over Mclaren? Or was the Alonso penalty at COTA just an effort at an American track to favor the protest of an American team ( Haas ) that had felt umfairly treated by rulings earlier in the year? I know, these sound like crazy conspiracy theories, but after their unprecedented decision last year to allow only certain cars to unlap themsleves and virtually hand the world championship to Verstappen over Hamilton, what can they expect?
And speaking of Alonso, he truly gets nothing but bad luck. Clearly best of the rest in a comfortable 7th place when he suffered a drop in power and then his third engine failure in the last four races. In the only other race ( COTA ) he suffered a grid penalty and he will no doubt be looking at the same in Brazil for yet another power unit. Does anyone else think the Alpine’s lack of reliability, so frustrating for any driver, was one of the reasons he is abandoning Alpine for Aston Martin next season?
Nice to see the Bottas Alfa showing great pace in qualifying this weekend - although typical of Bottas, he is a much better at qualifying than he is in the wheel to wheel battles during a race.
Finally, just got another idea for a new Formula1 motto: If you like the WWF, you’ll love F1!
