Fernando Alonso couldn’t resist making fun of George Russell’s on Twitter after his podium finish at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was restored.
The Aston Martin driver finished third in Jeddah on Sunday before receiving a 10-second time penalty shortly after the race ended, dropping him to fourth and elevating Russell to the podium.
However, Aston appealed the decision and were successful due to ambiguity in the rulebook, therefore Alonso did finally secure a podium, his 100th in Formula 1 and Russell fell back to fourth.
Alonso responded on Monday with a photo of himself gazing up into a camera, accompanied by the emojis for “Hola,” a “trophy” and “back” after Russell tweeted about winning his first trophy of the year. It marks Alonso’s second consecutive third-place finish after he took third in the season-opening race in Bahrain.
Russell had claimed after the race that Alonso and Aston deserved a podium finish because he thought the penalty was “unfair” and “too extreme” before it was overturned.
The Spaniard was given a five-second time penalty for starting the grand prix in the wrong grid position, and he went on to overtake Sergio Perez and take the lead of the race.
As Alonso made his first pit stop after losing the lead to Perez, who eventually won the race, maintenance on his car began milliseconds too early and the rear jack was raised too quickly, according to a review.
The stewards opted to revoke the 10-second penalty when team president Mike Krack cited “ambiguity” in the rules surrounding what counts as “working” on the car. As a result, Alonso was promoted back to third place.
Though Alonso claimed after the race that he “didn’t care too much” about the penalty, he did criticize the FIA for how long it took to reach a conclusion.
“It doesn’t hurt too much,” Alonso said. “It’s more the FIA who fall short today. You cannot apply a penalty 35 laps after the pit stop.”
“They had enough time to inform me about the penalty if I knew I could have pushed for 11 seconds, so it’s not good for the fans.”
“No one told me about this five seconds, there was no information at all, not even investigated… I don’t understand fully the second penalty… I care but I don’t care that much… I celebrated but I have three points less.”
Alonso’s second penalty was the subject of a dispute between precedents on what constituted “working on the car,” according to a representative for the governing FIA.
During the meeting of the Sports Advisory Committee on Thursday, he promised, the topic would be examined, and before the following race in Australia, a clarification would be made.
