Max Verstappen Agrees With Fernando Alonso Over Grid Visibility Issues

Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin was penalized in the Saudi Arabian GP for not being in the proper grid position at the start of the race. He was handed a 5-second time penalty for the same. This wasn't the first incident of its kind, as in the first race of the season in Bahrain, his former teammate Esteban Ocon was also handed a similar penalty. These penalties are very rare, but many have cited the wide nature of the new generation ground effect F1 cars for rudimentary errors of the best drivers on the planet. In Alonso's case, he is the most experienced F1 driver in the history of the sport and a two-time world champion. But the current reigning world champion, Max Verstappen, is also of the opinion that the lack of visibility causes these issues. The new ground effect cars, which have come into play since 2022, have longer noses, larger tires and wheelbrows, which reduce the driver's vision. "The visibility is just really poor in the car, that is probably the main issue where you end up sometimes not fully correctly in your box," Verstappen said. "It is painful when it happens, but it's a bit the same with the white line with track limits. Sometimes you argue: did you gain anything going wide or not, going outside of it? I think at one point we do need a rule. It looks really silly if people start to take advantage of going really left and right, but I don't know what we can do better,” Verstappen said of Alonso's error as he put his car at a disadvantage at the start of the Saudi Arabian GP and yet managed to overtake Perez at the start. Even Sergio Perez, the eventual winner of the Saudi Arabian GP, agreed. "It's really difficult just to see where you've stopped," he said, admitting he even stopped earlier to be on the safe side. "In my opinion, I just overdid it, and I stopped too early, but you have no idea when you are in the car. You don't know if you went too far behind or too far forward. We need better visibility to be able to come up with a better idea than we currently have it. It's good that there is a rule in place, but at the same time, sometimes it's like luck, to be honest, where you position yourself," he added. Even the GDPA director George Russell claimed that this was an issue.