After a safety car restart on lap 22, Stroll and Alonso were battling for seventh place when Alonso pulled out of the Canadian’s draft on the long COTA backstretch.
Stroll made a late defensive move, appearing to react to the Spaniard, then the pair made hard contact, sending an Alonso briefly airborne into the wall and Stroll into a spin.
Stroll retired to the spot with extensive damage, but somehow Alonso Alpine survived by taking an unlikely seventh place at the finish.
Ahead of the FIA stewards’ post-race inquiry, for which both drivers were summoned, Stroll felt the collision was not as clear cut as it appeared as he believed Alonso had left little margin when trying to overtake.
Asked if he acknowledged he moved too late, Stroll said: “I mean, I definitely moved late, but there was a big difference in speed.
“I was judging more or less, sort of choosing where he was behind me. But it’s not like I hit him in the side of his car. The impact is always his front wing in the back of my car.
“I gave him a lot of room on the left of the track, so it’s not like I had him tight or anything like that against a wall. He could have moved earlier and gone more to the left. He didn’t need to come so close to me either.
“So there are a lot of different ways of looking at the incident.
“It was a shame. It was a close wheel-to-wheel race and unfortunately I just made contact.”
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, arrives on the grid
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport footage
Next season Alonso will move from Alpine to Aston Martin to become Stroll’s new team-mate, but Stroll said the accident made no difference in their relationship.
“I don’t see it that way. We are racing drivers. It can happen in racing,” he said.
Until then, Aston were on course to achieve their best result of the season as a Stroll and team-mate. Sebastian Vettel ran ahead in the early stages.
Despite a slow final pit stop, Vettel still recovered eighth place at the finish after a daring overtake on Haas. Kevin Magnussen on the last lap of the race, which was won by Max Verstappen of Red Bull.
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