Alonso will get Saudi F1 podium again after penalty ruling overturned

The Spaniard completed third behind Purple Bull duo Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen on the Jeddah circuit on Sunday.

Nonetheless, shortly after the chequered flag, the FIA introduced that Alonso had been handed a 10-second penalty for having not correctly served a five-second penalty he had been given for failing to line up inside his grid field earlier within the race.

This dropped Alonso from third right down to fourth behind Mercedes driver George Russell.

The penalty was given out after video footage of the incident appeared to indicate the rear jack briefly touching the again of the automotive as Alonso waited for mechanics to start a tyre change.

After the choice, nonetheless, Aston Martin representatives visited the stewards to hunt a evaluation of the state of affairs as a result of they felt the foundations relating to the serving of penalties weren’t clear.

Whereas the main focus could have been on the jack hitting the automotive, the laws don’t explicitly state that mechanics can’t contact it.

As an alternative, Article 54.4 c) of F1’s Sporting Laws states: “Whereas a automotive is stationary within the pit lane because of incurring a penalty in accordance with Articles 54.3a) or 54.3b) above, it is probably not labored on till the automotive has been stationary all through the penalty.”

Aston Martin crew principal Mike Krack stated he believed Aston Martin had adopted the foundations and didn’t work on the automotive till after 5 seconds had elapsed.

He confirmed that sporting director Andy Stevenson had been in talks with race stewards concerning the matter as he advised that was a sure “ambiguity” concerning the particular wording of the laws.

“There have been discussions,” he stated. “There are various things within the sporting regs as a result of it says, ‘not engaged on the automotive.’

“I believe the time was clear, truly it was greater than 5 seconds, as a result of we took some margin.

“The foundations say you can not work on the automotive and, to our understanding, we’ve got not labored on the automotive. However I believe now this dialogue is across the jack touching the automotive or not. And that is I believe what’s in the mean time being clarified.”

The FIA was clear, nonetheless, that there was an acceptance amongst groups that it could deem it a breach of the foundations if mechanics did contact the automotive.

An announcement from the governing physique stated concerning the stewards: “They acknowledged that what was agreed on the SAC (Sporting Advisory Committee) conferences with the groups was that no a part of the automotive might be touched whereas a penalty was being served as this is able to represent engaged on the automotive.”

A number of hours after the race, nonetheless, the FIA introduced that it had modified its thoughts as a result of Aston Martin stated that no such settlement was in place amongst groups.

An announcement stated: “Having reviewed the brand new proof, we concluded that there was no clear settlement, as was advised to the Stewards beforehand, that might be relied upon to find out that events had agreed {that a} jack touching a automotive would quantity to engaged on the automotive, with out extra.

“Within the circumstances, we thought of that our authentic resolution to impose a penalty on Automotive 14 wanted to be reversed and we did so accordingly.”