“I mean, he was quite a bit quicker than me, a misjudgement a little bit on both ends. I left him room move on the left, he was very close. Maybe I moved a bit late.
“It’s just quite like one of those racing incidents where it all went wrong at the same time.”
Stroll brushed off any suggestion the shunt might cause tension between himself and his future team-mate, with Alonso moving to Aston next year.
“We’re racing drivers, these things happen in racing,” he said.
Once Alonso had recovered from the race, the Spaniard was able to make light of the shunt.
“This year we have a very strong car – apparently whoever crashes with an Alpine has everything to lose!” he joked, before taking a more serious view.
“We got lucky today. Not only the car itself, but also my health. I’m happy to be talking here with you and not in the medical centre.
“It is difficult, I saw now in the stewards room on the TV, I think we moved both at the same time to the left, so it was not that he reacted to my movement or anything like that.
“It was an unfortunate moment of the race, unlucky for both.”
Though the incident was only reviewed after the race, many were quick to criticise what appeared a very late move from Stroll.
Drivers are permitted only one defensive move when racing – with Stroll already on the right-hand side before moving left, some will say he contravened this.
These late changes of direction on the Straight are going to kill someone… @fia time to sort this behaviour out once and for all. It has bled down to the junior formula too.
— Dario Franchitti (@dariofranchitti) October 23, 2022