Alonso shrugs off Vettel's Malaysia blue flag complaints

Fernando Alonso has shrugged off Sebastian Vettel's frustration over allegedly not respecting blue flags while being lapped during Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix, saying that he could not have let the Ferrari Formula 1 driver through earlier.

Alonso finished P11 at Sepang on Sunday, outside the points and four places behind McLaren teammate Stoffel Vandoorne, who moved ahead of the Spaniard in the drivers' championship.

Frustrated to be trapped in what he called "secondary" midfield groups, Alonso found himself in a close-knit battle with Esteban Ocon, Kevin Magnussen, Romain Grosjean and Pierre Gasly come the end of the race, the quintet covered by just eight seconds. 

"Already from the very beginning, the second corner, the two Williams touch each other in front of us and slowed us a little bit," Alonso said.

"We lost a few places and then we were always in the secondary groups, a little bit slower than our pace but we could not overtake and that really compromised our race.

"We had better days and hopefully in Japan we come back in strong form."

Alonso dismissed claims he had held up Ferrari's Vettel on his charge from 20th to fourth when trying to catch Daniel Ricciardo, saying the Ferrari driver complained 'many times' of the same thing.

"Blue flags, blue flags. I don’t know, I didn’t see on television," Alonso said, mimicking Vettel.

"For me on the car it looks okay, but we heard many times ‘blue flags, blue flags’ from him so probably it’s one of those."

Asked about Alonso's move, Vettel said: "We came two cars within a second, and he decided to jump in the middle.

"I think he said when he left Ferrari he’s a Ferrari fan, and today he didn’t behave like one."