The 10-second post-race penalty for Fernando Alonso in Jeddah has been overturned and regains his career 100th podium.
A review by the FIA led to the reinstatement of Fernando Alonso’s podium result at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
This comes after his 100th podium finish was revoked just minutes after the Jeddah podium ceremony came to an end.
The Stewards determined that Alonso’s serving of a penalty for starting out of position during the grand prix was improper. He consequently received a 10-second time penalty, which dropped him to fourth place and gave third place to George Russell.
Alonso was given a five-second penalty for being positioned improperly in the starting box. He completed the five-second penalty before the pit stop on lap 19. The double world champion then received a 10-second time penalty after the race after suggesting that the previous penalty was not administered properly.
Alonso celebrated on the podium, but was later dropped from third place as George Russell took the spot.
However, Aston Martin sought a right of review following the penalty and was successful in having the sanction reversed.
The Stewards stated that the latest SAC meeting minutes as well as video proof of 7 additional incidents where cars were handled by jacks while serving a punishment akin to that meted out to Car 14 without being reprimanded were shown.
“The clear submission by the Team was that the alleged representation of an agreement between the FIA and the teams that touching the car in any way, including with a jack, would constitute ‘working’ on the car for the purposes of Article 54.4 (c) of the Sporting Regulations, was incorrect and therefore the basis of the Steward’s decision was wrong.
The statement from F1 stewards read: “In the light of the Petition, the Stewards had to decide if there was a ‘significant and relevant new element [that was] discovered which was unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned’.
“If there was such an element(s) then the Stewards would need to consider whether the decision needed to be modified in any way.:
“Having reviewed the video evidence presented and having heard from the Team representative of Aston Martin and the relevant members from the FIA, the Stewards determined that there did exist significant and relevant new evidence as required under Article 14.1.1 to trigger a review of the decision, in particular the video evidence and the verbal evidence from the Team and from the FIA.”
“It was clear to us that the substratum of the original decision, namely the representation of there being an agreement, was called into question by the new evidence. We therefore proceeded to hear the substance of the request for review.”
Aston Martin has reclaimed second place in the Constructors’ Championship as a result of the reinstatement.
The FIA further stated that a clarification will be made prior to the 2023 FIA Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix and that the question of the meaning of “working on the car” will be discussed at the upcoming Sports Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday, 23 March.
“Having reviewed the new evidence, we concluded that there was no clear agreement, as was suggested to the Stewards previously, that could be relied upon to determine that parties had agreed that a jack touching a car would amount to working on the car, without more.
“In the circumstances, we considered that our original decision to impose a penalty on Car 14 needed to be reversed and we did so accordingly.”
