Alonso “not angry” after Grosjean crash

As the dust settled on the terrifying crash that blighted the start of Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso insisted that he had no hard feelings toward Romain Grosjean, the Lotus driver who caused a first-corner pile-up.

“No. No-one would do this on purpose,” the current championship leader said when asked if he was angry with the Frenchman who caused the crash by indavertedly touching wheels with Lewis Hamilton's McLaren. Both cars were sent careening into Alonso, with the Lotus bouncing over the top of his Ferrari, narrowly missing the Spaniard’s head and hands.

“I think they had a battle and they are two aggressive drivers on the start,” Alonso said of Grosjean and Hamilton. “This time it was us in the wrong place at the wrong moment, and we were hit. But it is also true that in 12 races, Romain has had seven crashes at the start.”

The 2006 champion took the opportunity to call for greater control on the part of the drivers. “It is up to us, the drivers, to have common sense and respect for the others,” he said, also calling on the sport’s governing body, the FIA, to do more to avoid examples of bad driving in Formula 1. “It is true that we have seen some repeat accidents from the same people, and maybe a different approach from the federation could be the solution.”

“Aggressive drivers”

Ferrari’s team boss, Stefano Domenicali, echoed the opinion of Alonso. “In my view, the most important thing is looking at the behavior of drivers,” he said. “It has to start in the championships before Formula 1. You see it too often in the other series that drivers are very aggressive and try to do something almost over what it is possible to do, so it is important to be very strict since they start racing and then they will arrive in F1 in a better condition for that.”

The spectacular crash — which kept TV viewers on tenterhooks as doctors rushed to check on Alonso, who only suffered whiplash — has prompted renewed calls for covered cockpits to be introduced on Formula 1 cars. Work first began on the concept in 2009, when Alonso’s teammate Felipe Massa was struck on the helmet by a part from another car. The incident came just days after 18-year-old Henry Surtees, the son of former Formula 1 world champion John Surtees, died after a wheel struck his head during a Formula 2 race.