Alonso wants Hulkenberg banned after Spa crash

Fernando Alonso had his race ended before the first lap as the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg locked up and slammed into the back of his McLaren, sending him flying over the unfortunate Sauber of Charles Leclerc, ending all of their races.

Alonso was understandably upset and had a pretty scathing assessment of the blunder committed by the German. Now, he has hinted that the FIA should take appropriate action and ban Hulkenberg like they did Grosjean for a similar incident in 2012.

“It’s hard to understand how you can miss a braking point that much. You arrive at a speed where it’s impossible to negotiate the corner,” Alonso told BBC.

“Yet again a very big-time missed braking point. Last time Romain had a race ban. This time we’ll see.”

However, Alonso was positive about one thing- the fact that all three of them were safe. “The positive side is that we all three are okay, including Charles. I flew over his car and the halo was a very good thing to have today,” he said.

“I think for him it helped, looking at the replay. I was definitely happier that I had the halo. We don’t need to prove that it’s a good thing to have.”

Hulkenberg, usually a very reliable driver, made an uncharacteristic mistake when he locked up massively. Renault already had a poor start to the weekend when Sainz was knocked out in Q1 and then started at the back of the grid after an engine change.

The race was a bummer for another world champion as Kimi Raikkonen was initially hit with a puncture and later retired after an unidentified mechanical problem with his Ferrari. It compounded his issues after a misjudgment wrecked his qualifying yesterday.

Daniel Ricciardo retired too as he was bumped into by the flying McLaren of Alonso in the first lap. Though the Red Bull crew managed to fix his car, the pace was not quite there and they decided to stop running it towards the end.

Meanwhile, Vettel took full advantage of his overtake of Lewis Hamilton down the Kemmel straight to score Ferrari’s first win in Spa since 2009 and cut the championship lead of the Brit down to 17 points ahead of next week’s Italian Grand Prix.

It will be the home race for the Scuderia and they will be hoping to take victory at least and may even aim for a 1-2 finish at a circuit which has hosted the most number of Grand Prix.