Alonso cleared of blame in incident with Coulthard

By role
June 29 2003

Fernando Alonso has been cleared of blame by the stewards for the incident with David Coulthard. Coulthard declared he thought Alonso test-braked him forcing him to take evasive action and loose the control of the car.

David Coulthard was indeed dissapointed and was left wondering whatever ther was anything deliberate done by the young Spaniard:

"I'd be disappointed to think it was anything deliberate," said the McLaren driver. "It's not like I just locked up and decided to turn right off the circuit to avoid hitting him. I never even braked before I nearly hit him and had to swerve off the circuit - and we know from my data that that was ten metres earlier than it was on the lap before."

"You just have to trust the guys you are racing with - I have no reason not to trust Fernando. I don't want just to be negative and create a scandal, but I was very shocked to see how early he braked for that corner. That is a very difficult thing to deal with.

"He still gets the points and I am the silly one because I have gone off the circuit, but putting all that to one side I would rather have a go and cock it up and end up in the gravel knowing I was trying to get by him." Concluded the Scot.

Alonso thought he was not to blame for the incident:

"The stewards wanted to know what happened," said Alonso. "I told them I was having a few problems and slowed down a bit earlier on that lap. But there were no serious problems with the tyres or the car. David got a bit too close to me I think."

The FIA backed his word and declared a racing incident:

"Following a report from the Race Director which stated that after an incident involving car number 8 (Fernando Alonso) and car number 5 (David Coulthard) which resulted in the latter car leaving the track, the Stewards of the Meeting summoned both drivers and their team representatives," said the statement from the FIA.

"Having heard evidence from both drivers and team representatives, viewed video and telemetry evidence, the Stewards of the Meeting are satisfied that the incident requires no further judicial action."