Fernando Alonso re-opened his “nationality” bias suggestion in claiming he would not receive the “same benefit” as George Russell did in Qatar.

Russell and Max Verstappen have found themselves embroiled in a vicious war of words stemming from an incident in Qatar GP qualifying, for which Verstappen was stripped of pole with a one-place grid drop after Russell encountered the slow-moving Red Bull racer, though both were on cool laps. That verdict promoted Russell to pole.

Fernando Alonso reiterates ‘nationality’ matters in F1 opinion

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

But, if Alonso had have been in Russell’s position, he believes his nationality would have triggered a different verdict from the stewards.

This is not the first time that Alonso has claimed nationality matters when it comes to decision making from the stewards, having said that was the case after he was penalised at the Australian GP having been judged to have caused Russell to crash despite no contact being made.

“I’m just saying that sometimes when they apply, you know, a rule or penalty to someone, then why we don’t follow that path, and in the next race, it’s not applicable anymore, depending sometimes which nationality you are,” Alonso told the Formula 1 website.

“If I do that, I will not receive the same benefit as George did probably there [in Qatar], or maybe my incident in Australia, contactless, you know, 30 meters away from me, someone goes off track and I get the penalties.

“So, sometimes you wonder if you switch the positions and you are the other guy, if you will have the same treatment. That’s what I say sometimes.”

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Among the array of verbal jabs thrown at each other between Verstappen and Russell was Verstappen suggesting the Brit is two-faced, sporting different personalities in front of the camera and behind closed doors.

However, that is not a claim which Alonso agrees with.

Asked about Verstappen’s assessment of Russell, Alonso replied to the media, including PlanetF1.com: “No, I don’t think so.

“I think George is a great driver, great person. I’m a good friend of George as well. I don’t think that he’s showing different faces here and there.

“I think it’s more about… what Max probably agrees with me that I said many times, that some of the penalties are a little bit not consistent in terms of if you have that one episode in Qatar and then you go to the next event and you replicate exactly the same episode, which you can replicate by yourself.

“You can induce that episode driving, then you don’t get the same result in terms of penalties. That’s the frustration that we sometimes have.”

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