AUSTIN — Liam Lawson was surprised how upset Fernando Alonso got with him after Saturday’s U.S. Grand Prix sprint, adding “hopefully he’ll get over it.”
Alonso was upset after passing Lawson down the long back straight at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas. At the left-hander which followed, Lawson did a switch-back and managed to get back in front, squeezing the Aston Martin driver in the process.
“Man, the AlphaTauri is such an idiot,” Alonso said on the radio afterwards, referencing the RB team’s previous name.
Alonso was then pictured having an animated conversation with Lawson as the pair walked away from their cars following the sprint.
Alonso then told DAZN: “Too much action, maybe, from Lawson, who has six races to prove things. I don’t think it’s the best way, but it’s his career at stake and not mine.”
A few hours later at the start of Q1, Alonso weaved right and left behind Lawson as they both came out of the pit-lane, before overtaking on the hill up towards Turn 1.
Lawson was unsure what Alonso had been trying to do.
“I don’t know, he said he would screw me and I guess he kept his word. I dunno,” Lawson said when asked what happened with Alonso.
“He was really upset, I’m not sure why, we were racing for P16 and I don’t know why he was so upset. Yeah, I don’t know. It is what it is. Hopefully he can get over it and we’ll move forward.”
Lawson added: “I understand he had a pretty horrible race so I can understand why he’s upset. But if I did anything wrong I’d have got a penalty.”
Alonso said Lawson’s original move to defend reminded him of the collision he had with now-teammate Lance Stroll in 2022 at the same section of the race track.
“I think on the straight we nearly crashed like I did with Lance two years ago, at 300 something [kph], and then the way he squeezed out of the corners to the track limits itself, in lap one out of 11, I don’t want to make a big thing.
“You know, of course no penalty when someone lifts off in 16, 17, that was probably the biggest surprise.”
Asked if he had been trying to “screw” Lawson by overtaking out of the pit-lane, Alonso said: “No, not really, but you know, everyone on track is behaving as he wants, and for me today it was unnecessary, everyone can have different opinions, I’m OK with that, and it’s 24 races, so you meet somewhere in the journey.”
Alonso then shut down questions on the Lawson incident, telling journalists it was not very important.
