Fernando Alonso criticised the ‘bottom third’ of the F1 grid after making contact with Alex Albon at the United States Grand Prix.

Alonso sustained significant damage in the collision with Albon, though no penalty was awarded. He finished 16th but felt he would have been ‘P9 or P10 on merit’ without the incident, with Aston Martin apparently showing their best pace all year.

Albon tried to pass Alonso for 12th at the start but hit the side of the Aston Martin. The two-time world champion felt the move summed up the ‘very low’ quality of the drivers in that portion of the field.

Otmar Szafnauer defends Alex Albon after Fernando Alonso dig

Speaking on the High Performance Racing podcast, Otmar Szafnauer, who was Alonso’s team principal at Alpine in 2022, challenged the viral comments.

What do you make of Fernando Alonso's comments on the standard of F1's lower-midfield drivers?

“Didn’t he say that the backmarkers lack talent? My first thought was: does he realise he’s a backmarker now?” Szafnauer said.

When it was put to him that the bottom seven drivers in the standings have scored ‘over 150’ podiums combined, he replied: “Unbelievable. You know what that tells you? Their cars are c—. [Albon] deserves his place in Formula 1, absolutely.”

Alonso, who currently ranks 17th, is single-handedly responsible for 106 of those podiums, but Valtteri Bottas (67), Sergio Perez (39) and Carlos Sainz (29) have also contributed heavily.

Albon may have only scored two in his career, but it was just last season that he finished eighth in the standings, making him the ‘best of the rest’ behind the traditional frontrunners.

For Szafnauer, the drivers in the ‘bottom third’ of the pack are there not because of a lack of talent, but because of their machinery. He pointed to the pace differential between Mercedes and Cadillac to back up his argument.

He said: “The first few laps [in Austin], from the leader to the last place car, so that was Kimi to maybe Bottas, [there was] six seconds a lap difference. That’s like an F1 car and an F2 car around COTA. I think the F2 car would have been closer, but that is huge.”

“The differential is so big now. I thought, because the rules have changed, both on the powertrain and on the chassis side, that the learning curve would be very steep for those cars at the back of the grid, and they would catch up.

“Usually what happens is, you go and look at what the fast cars have done and you quickly copy, and they’re not able to do that… I’ve never known anything like it.”

Just as a driver like Albon was able to show his talent in a competitive Williams last year, he looks deceptively ordinary following their sharp drop-off.

Alonso has commendably scored seven points for Aston Martin this season even though they may have been the second-slowest car on the grid at the majority of races. He has only been able to reach Q2 three times in 18 rounds.