Cool crash
MONZA - Championship leader Fernando Alonso bears no ill-feeling towards Roman Grosjean, who ended his Belgian Grand Prix hopes following a multi-car accident at the start of last weekend's race.
Grosjean went for a small gap and clipped Lewis Hamilton's McLaren, resulting in both cars spinning and Grosjean's Lotus flying over Alonso's Ferrari - missing the Spaniard's helmet by centimetres - which then took out Sauber's Sergio Perez.
Alonso said he remains on friendly terms with his former Renault colleague.
"We've spoken about it," Alonso said in an online chat with Ferrari fans. "I have a good relationship with him. We were team-mates at Renault and, after the accident, he sent me an SMS saying he was sorry and that he hadn't calculated the distance well."
For causing the accident, Grosjean was banned for one race and replaced by Jerome D'Ambrosio at Lotus, while safety in Formula 1 continues to dominate discussion going into this weekend's Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
Ideas being debated include a cage around drivers' heads, adding rear-wheel bumpers and employing running starts.
Others have called for a football-like system whereby, if you get two warnings for reckless driving, you miss the next race.
Alonso continues to lead the Drivers Championship with 164 points after 12 races, 24 points ahead of defending champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull, who is second.
"It's always special and the expectations are very high,'' said Alonso, who first won at Monza in 2007 with McLaren and again in 2010 with Ferrari.
"From a driver's point of view, it's a strange circuit, though. There are only five curves and two chicanes, which don't give you much of a chance to make an impact. It's not difficult for a driver but you need a very fast car on the straights."
Meanwhile, Ma Qing Hua is slated to become the first Chinese driver to take part in a F1 weekend when he replaces Narain Karthikeyan at HRT for the first practice session.
