Alonso and Heidfeld complain to stewards
| By Jonathan Noble and Simon Strang |
Saturday, March 22nd 2008, 08:19 GMT |
Fernando Alonso and Nick Heidfeld have complained to the stewards after they encountered slowing cars on their final qualifying attempts.
Heidfeld was forced to jink off line to avoid a collision after he encountered several cars on their slowing down laps in the final moments of qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang. The German claims that the incident cost him at least 0.2 seconds, the difference between third and seventh on the grid.
"That's the disappointing part," he told UK broadcaster ITV. "Q1 and Q2 went pretty smooth and then in Q3 most of the cars were already very, very slow when I was on my flying lap.
"They were just like parked on the circuit, I think it was both of the McLarens in front of Turn 4, being in the middle of the racing line. I could not be on the line I wanted, especially for braking. I have lost some time there, I think I lost two tenths, and if you look at the times they were very, very close.
"I would have been third, but what can you do now? Very clearly [it needs to be looked at] and I reported that on the radio. From my point of view it is not correct what they did."
BMW team principal Mario Theissen also told autosport.com that he wanted clarification over the situation.
"I am not happy because it was so tight," he said. "Five cars within 15 hundredths so instead of P7 we could have in P3, and especially Nick wasn't happy because on his final fast lap there were a few other cars on the racing line on their in-lap so he certainly lost a few hundredths and maybe even P3
"I think nick is talking to the stewards right now"
Double world champion Alonso also went to visit the stewards with Renault engineer Steve Nielsen, with the team's principal Flavio Briatore telling autosport.com that 'it looks like' he encountered similar problems.
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