20 March 2023 , 21:25
1102
0
Fernando Alonso jumped at the chance to make light of the situation after he was finally awarded third place at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The Spaniard finished in that position but, after collecting the trophy and celebrating on the podium, he was swiftly brought crashing back down to earth. Alonso had 10 seconds added to his time after the race as evidence came to light suggesting that he had not served an earlier penalty correctly.
He was critical of how long it had taken for the punishment to be applied. Even George Russell, who benefitted from the penalty as he was elevated to third place, declared in his post-race interview that Alonso shouldn't have been stripped of the podium.
He repeated that sentiment in a social media post, which contained a photo of him holding the trophy, and the caption: "Fernando and Aston Martin deserved the podium today but I'm very happy to pick up our first trophy of the season and super proud of the hard work the team is putting in. Let's keep pushing."
After several hours, it emerged that Aston Martin had actually appealed the penalty and that they had been successful. It was in the early hours of the morning local time when Alonso, and the rest of the world, learned that his third place finish had been reinstated.
Sebastian Vettel warns of looming F1 ban and is "very worried about the future"
After getting some sleep, the Spaniard logged on to social media himself to make a request to Russell. Replying to that post, Alonso joked that he wanted his trophy back and posted a distorted photo of himself looking into the camera lens while donning a pair of sunglasses.
Explaining the final decision in a document, the FIA said: "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.
"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."