McLaren drivers unhappy with Monaco stewards

McLaren drivers Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button complained on Saturday that stewards had been too lenient towards drivers who blocked others in practice and qualifying at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Overtaking is extremely difficult in the season’s showcase event and on-track traffic is always a problem.

However, drivers have also been having problems heating up the Pirelli tyres, taking more laps than usual to get up to speed.

“The traffic we had here this weekend was quite bad,” said Alonso, who will start 13th and is chasing the team’s first points of the season.

“It seems a little bit strange that there are not more investigations going on and in free practice it was just ridiculous,” added the Spaniard.

“In FP3 (the third and final practice before qualifying) there were no rules out there, people going out of the pit lane on a very slow out-lap, you were on the fastest lap and they tried to close the door in every single braking point.”

Button, who will start 10th, agreed that there had been a problem but suggested that was inevitable with the tyre situation.

“It feels the worst it’s been but we’re going to do it unless there’s a penalty. That’s the problem,” he told reporters.