There seemed to be no more hope for Fernando Alonso, who was forced to give up the podium at Jeddah, the number 100 of his career, due to a 10-second penalty that arrived even after the celebrations. The trophy, displayed by the Spaniard, was handed over to Russell once the penalty arrived, who declared that he "didn't deserve it" as much as Alonso and l'Aston Martin. Just the latter she didn't let herself be intimidated and immediately filed an appeal with the FIA which published the following verdict a few minutes ago.
Podium confirmed for Fernando Alonso
The team got busy and immediately after the verdict went to the FIA offices to shed light on what happened, winning the appeal and thus restoring Fernando's podium. But let's take a step back. After serving a five-second penalty in the pits for not lining up correctly in the pits on the starting line, the FIA has opened a second investigation into Fernando following a report from the Remote Operations Center. The report referred to the fact that the penalty had not been served correctly as Alonso's car had been touched by the mechanic in charge of the trolley. The report was based on the fact that the teams had agreed that any contact with the car would involve a "work" on it.
The FIA has therefore issued a statement to sanction the driver with a 10-second penalty. A decision the team did not take lightly. Enough to lead the Aston Martin team principal, Mike Krack to declare that they have already launched an appeal. The news started circulating. The bench reopened, and to add to the confusion came a post from Fernando Alonso in which he celebrated his 100th podium finish. The most spontaneous reaction was to think that he was joking about the penalty. Fernando had already criticized the FIA, judging the penalty received as a "bad show by the FIA".
After him, Briatore and others also began to congratulate the Spaniard. There the picture appeared clear and the declarations came out gradually. The Federation therefore has confirmed that the team had the right to review the sanction in Jeddah. Subsequently publishing the document that formalizes Fernando's podium.
FIA press release
The FIA, on proof of Aston Martin which brought 7 useful examples to re-examine the case, admitted that there was no real agreement on this issue. “In support of the re-examination petition, the stewards were shown the minutes of the last SAC meeting and video evidence of 7 different instances of cars being touched by the trolley while serving a similar penalty to that inflicted on Car 14 without being penalised.”
After the admission of the FIA to the appeal came the revocation of the penalty. “After reviewing the new evidence, we concluded that there was no clear agreement, as previously suggested to the stewards, that we could rely on to establish that the parties had agreed that a dolly touching a car would amount to work on the car. Under the circumstances, we felt that our original decision to impose a penalty on car 14 should be reversed and we did so accordingly.".
