Fernando Alonso has defended George Russell after he was accused of being ‘two-faced’ by ಞFormula 1 wor𓆉ld champion Max Verstappen amid the Qatar Grand Prix penalty drama.

Four-time world champion Verstappen was handed a one-place grid drop when he was deemed to have impeded Mercedes’ Russell in Qatar qꦅualifying last weekend.

꧋However, Verstappen was left seething with Russell’s push for a penalty as there was no precedent for handing out punishment for driving too slowly, especially as the latter wasn’t on a fast lap at the time.

This led to a fiery outburst fromꦕ Verstappen in Qa🅰tar, with the Red Bull driver stating: “He always acts very nice here in front of the cameras. But when you're in there it's a completely different person. I can't stand that.”

On Thursday at the Abu Dhabi GP finale, 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Verstappen doubled down on his stance and ℱsaid he had “no regrets” about what he said in Qatar.

When asked his views on the ☂war of words between Verstappen and Russell, Alonso - who has often been critical of stewarding in F1 - offered a level-headed response.

“No, I don't think so,” when asked by the media, includin🦄g ltxcn.top, if he agreed with Verstappen’s ‘two-faced’ assessment of Russell.

“I think George is a grea🤡t 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 bi♐t not consistent in terms of if you have that one episode in Qatar and then you go to the neജxt event and you replicate exactly the same episode, which you can replicate by yourself.

“You can induce that episode driving, 𒉰then you don't get the same result in terms𓂃 of penalties.

“So, that's the 🔥frustration🐠 that we sometimes have. But recently we changed the race director, we changed also some of the people in the stewards' room.

“So, hopefully all those changes𝄹 are for good and to improve this consistency that we are asking.

“So we need to give them a little bit of time as well. A🧸nd hopefully, here and next year, we have a more consistent and better outco𝓡mes.”

Rui Marques recently took over as F1 race director from Niels Wittich, after he stepped down from the FIA with immediate effect, with Q🅠atar marking the former’s second race in the role.

Marques also had to pull double duty in Qatar as he ful♏fille൲d his previous role as race director for Formula 2.