Stewards pass judgment on Alonso incident after 'stressful' sprint shootout

Fernando Alonso secured third place in the sprint shootout, behind Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton. The Aston Martin driver briefly had to fear a possible grid penalty as an incident in the pit lane was under investigation, but the FIA stewards have since cleared him.

Alonso may retain P3 for start of sprint race

The pit lane was crowded as the first raindrops came down. All Formula 1 drivers wanted to record a lap as quickly as possible before the track got too wet, so crowds formed at the pit exit. In the process, Alonso overtook local hero Guanyu Zhou, leading to an investigation by the stewards. They ruled that Alonso overtook in a place where it was allowed - on the track leading to the pit exit and not just before the pit exit. He was therefore allowed to keep his third starting spot for the sprint race.

Alonso was one of the standouts in the sprint shootout, which serves as qualifying for Saturday's sprint. "[It was] quite stressful, to be honest," he explained to Sky Sports afterwards. "I mean, in Q1 we were just looking at the radar and the threat of rain was there since the first minute. we made some progress in Q1 and then in Q2 just because we were P8 or P9."

"So, yeah, not super competitive in the dry and then it rained at the end of Q3 and every lap the conditions were a little bit different. The tyres were a bit better every lap, but the circuit was slightly worse with more rain. So, it was difficult to judge, you know, the level of grip and the level of risk that you wanted to apply. In the end, extremely happy," said the two-time world champion.