World Champion Fernando Alonso has voiced his dissatisfaction with Renault team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella, questioning the Italian's actions during his defeat to Michael Schumacher at last weekend's Chinese Grand Prix.
Alonso finished second behind Schumacher after leading in the early stages of the race before a tyre problem saw both Fisichella and Schumacher sweep past the 26-year-old as his pace slowed markedly.
Schumacher eventually passed Fisichella to win for the fifth time in seven races and draw level on 116 points with Alonso in the standings for this year's drivers' crown, while the Spaniard recovered to finish second.
After a week in which Alonso has raised concerns that not everyone in his team is behind his push to retain the world title, he remains puzzled that Fisichella did not do more to help during his mid-race slump.
"What I felt was that maybe I had a problem with the car for nine or 10 laps and I felt alone, for sure," said Alonso.
"I was first and my team-mate was second and they came to me, they overtook me and they were gone. When I recovered the pace they were gone.
"It's like you are in the Tour de France, you are in the mountains, you have a puncture and your team and your rival go uphill without stopping. That was a bit difficult to understand."
Fisichella's overtaking manoeuvre particularly irked Alonso, who felt such a high-risk move could have severely dented his championship chances with just this weekend's race in Japan and one more in Brazil to follow.
"I tried to keep the line in the last corner, in Turn 14," he said.
"Once he overtook me and I overtook him again, and these risky moments with three races to win the championship, with your team mate are not good.
"Fisichella tried to overtake me. The cars were side by side on the straight, he overtook me so there was no team play. Maybe even the opposite."
Alonso is talking more bullsh*t.....he was 4 seconds slower that fisi/alonso and with pace like that schumi would of had taken fisi easily before eventually taking alonso........wouldnt it be ironic if say alonso was 2nd in brazil behind fisi and he needed a win to be WDC? dont think fisi would move over with alonso disrespecting him like this
I don't think Fisi did anything wrong at China but when you compare Massa's ability to help Schumacher with Ferrari 1-2s all the time and then look at Fisichella he is always runnin around 5th or 6th when ideally he should be 2nd. If Massa was the 2nd driver for Renault and Fisichella for Ferrari then Fernando would have wrapped up the WDC already...
Log in to comment