![\"Mark-Webber-1\"](\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2013-rif-images\/f1-2013-drivers\/Mark-Webber-1.jpg\")
Webber was penalised for hitching a ride on the sidepod of Alonso’s Ferrari after breaking down at the end of the Singapore grand prix.<\/p>\nMark Webber and Fernando Alonso have slammed and ridiculed the ten-place grid penalty the Australian will have to serve next weekend in Korea.<\/p>\n
Webber was penalised for hitching a ride on the sidepod of Alonso’s Ferrari after breaking down at the end of the Singapore grand prix.<\/p>\n
He is furious.<\/p>\n
“For Alonso and me to receive reprimands for our actions after the race is comical to say the least.<\/p>\n
“Great moment, and fans loved it,” Webber wrote on Twitter.<\/p>\n
He posted a montage of 12 similar ‘taxi rides’ throughout F1 history, including when Singapore steward Derek Warwick rode on the engine cover of Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari.<\/p>\n
“Yes, I thought it had been done before,” added Webber.<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old, who is leaving F1 at the end of the season, also denied marshals told him not to cross the track in order to climb aboard Alonso’s stationary car.<\/p>\n
Friend Alonso also joined the Twitter condemnation, posting a photoshopped image of himself and Webber in a taxi, with the caption addressed to the Red Bull driver: “Ready for Hollywood?”<\/p>\n
FIA steward Warwick had defended the penalty on the basis that drivers on the slowing-down lap had to swerve past Alonso and Webber, because the Spaniard had parked on the racing line after a blind corner.<\/p>\n
But Webber’s former Red Bull teammate David Coulthard insisted: “Who were Webber and Alonso putting in danger?<\/p>\n
“In reality, only themselves.\u00a0 And that’s what they do every time they strap themselves into their racing cars,” he wrote in a column for the BBC.<\/p>\n
McLaren’s Jenson Button agreed: “(I’m) disappointed to see the penalties for Webber and Alonso; (an) act of sportsmanship should not really be punished,” he said on Twitter.<\/p>\n
Sections of the press are also highly critical of the penalty.<\/p>\n
“It is petty and hypocritical to accuse drivers who have risked their lives for two hours at an average of 200kph between concrete walls to have acted dangerously.<\/p>\n
“It is treating them as though they are children who don’t know what they’re doing,” Autosprint’s Alberto Sabbatini said.<\/p>\n
“Actually, as we could see from the cameras, (Lewis) Hamilton was doing only 60kph (when he passed Alonso-Webber) — ridiculous(ly slow) speeds for the brakes and reaction times of professional drivers,” he insisted.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso have slammed and ridiculed the ten-place grid penalty the Australian will have to serve next weekend in Korea. Webber was penalised for hitching a ride on the sidepod of Alonso’s Ferrari after breaking down at the end of the Singapore grand prix. He is furious. “For Alonso and me to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[410,1343,5262,149,5300,5340,258,153,165,129],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19389,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19388\/revisions\/19389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}