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F1 fans were left bemused when Aston Martin F1 driver Fernando Alonso confronted Visa Cash App RB driver Liam Lawson after their incident at the Sprint race on Saturday. It was a difficult Sprint for the two-time world champion as he failed to gain any positions during the 19-lap race and finished P17 after starting from P14.
Alonso found himself scrapping at the back of the grid while defending his P15 from Liam Lawson in the initial few laps of the race. The 43-year-old was fuming after Lawson retaliated aggressively after the Spaniard had passed him initially going into Turn 13.
Over his team radio, Alonso called the Kiwi an "idiot", and later caught up with the 22-year-old in the parc ferme to confront him about the incident. During his post-race interview with DAZN, Alonso said:
"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."
Liam Lawson expressed confusion at Alonso's comments and hoped that the situation would resolve soon, saying (via ESPN):
"I don't know, he said he would screw me and I guess he kept his word. I dunno. He was really upset, I'm not sure why, we were racing for P16 and I don't know why he was so upset. 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."
F1 fans took to social media to give their reactions to Fernando Alonso dueling it out with Liam Lawson in parc ferme on X, with one fan saying:
"As the most experienced driver on the grid, a champion, how are you not embarrassed behaving like this with a rookie?"
"Alonso got slapped about by a rookie and lost his marbles," another fan remarked.
"Just spiteful." a fan claimed.
"He does have form, he was an a**ehole to Lewis in his first season. I like alonso, but he is spicy," wrote another.
"Beefing with rookies since 2007 is he not embarrassed," another fan wrote.
Fernando Alonso previews the main race after qualifying in P8
Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso said that he was "hopeful" about his chances of scoring points in the main race after qualifying P8 on Saturday after a difficult Sprint.
Speaking to F1.com, the two-time world champion mentioned that after facing difficulties with the car, the team was able to find the right setup to extract more performance.
"It's a good result for us to finish in eighth position in today's Qualifying. We've not been comfortable with the car and have made set-up changes. I think the changes we made after the Sprint have helped and we found more performance which is encouraging," Fernando Alonso said.
While he maintained that the car still had issues, Alonso felt that the qualifying result put them in contention for a point-scoring finish in the race.
"It's still challenging to drive the car, but this result hopefully allows us to score some points tomorrow. There are some fast cars starting behind us so the top ten will be a good battle tomorrow."
The US Grand Prix was one of the few races last year where Fernando Alonso failed to score points given his excellent campaign in 2023.
