Johnny Herbert discloses he’s received “death threats” for penalising Fernando Alonso in Australia

Former F1 driver turned pundit and steward, Johnny Herbert, recently revealed how he received death threats after penalising Fernando Alonso at the 2024 F1 Australian GP.

The Spanish driver received a 20-second penalty after the race in Melbourne for potentially dangerous driving and causing an accident. In the latter stages of the Grand Prix, Alonso was chased by George Russell for sixth place. At turn 6, Alonso drastically slowed the car to take the corner, causing Russell to lose control of his car, slide into the gravel trap, and hit the barriers.

After the race, the stewards, including Herbert, analysed the incident from all angles. They did not have sufficient data to determine whether Alonso was intentionally causing problems for Russell or was simply trying to get a better exit from the turn. Nonetheless, they gave the Aston Martin driver a 20-second penalty for potentially driving dangerously, particularly because of the high-speed nature of the track.

Although Fernando Alonso initially finished the race in P6, the penalty pushed him down to P8 in the final classification.

As quoted by PlanetF1, Johnny Herbert told Fastest Payout Online Casino that he received death threats after he and other race stewards decided to penalise Alonso at the Australian GP.

“I was a steward at the Melbourne GP and the repercussions were awful," Herbert said. "I got a torrent of death threats via social media. I am lucky I have got broad shoulders. I find it pathetic that I was the one thrown under the bus.

“There were messages with dagger emojis at the bottom of the screen; people saying we know where you live, we will come for you. Most of them were Spanish."

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Fernando Alonso's take on his penalty at the 2024 F1 Australian GP

After the 2024 F1 Australian GP, Fernando Alonso gave his views on receiving the penalty for George Russell's accident.

On his official X account, he wrote that he was surprised to receive a penalty for the way he approached a corner in the race.

"A bit surprised by a penalty at the end of the race regarding how we should approach the corners or how we should drive the race cars." He added, "At no point do we want to do anything wrong at these speeds. I believe that without gravel on that corner, on any other corner in the world, we will never be even investigated."

After George Russell lost control of his car, he hit the barriers and his car came to a stop in the middle of the track. Despite that, the remaining few laps of the race continued under a safety car, and the race eventually ended.