Fernando Alonso’s public defence of how he drove while protecting position from George Russell on the penultimate lap of Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix was a typically bombastic piece of self-promotion.

But it only flirted with the full picture of what really happened in the incident that ended with Russell crashing out and Alonso getting a 20-second penalty.

Alonso’s claim that he was trying to get the best exit out of Turn 6 is the one bit of his reasoning that stands up to scrutiny.

He was in a close battle with a faster car, battling against battery problems on his own car, and knew that Russell’s best chance to overtake on the final lap would be with DRS open along the winding flat-out section from Turn 6 to Turn 9.

By deliberately slowing his pace into Turn 6, Alonso would have been hoping to compromise Russell enough to prevent what Alonso no doubt calculated would likely have been a straightforward overtake.