Fernando Alonso has been reinstated in third place in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after Aston Martin won a right to review his penalty.
The Spaniard had originally finished third and celebrated on the podium, but was then hit with a 10s time penalty for failing to serve an earlier penalty correctly. He received a 5s time penalty during the race itself for being out of position on the grid at the start, but despite Race Control believing he had served it properly, a request for the stewards to review the pit stop when the penalty was taken led to him being further punished as the rear jack was touching the car.
Part of that decision was based on the fact that the stewards believed an agreement had been reached among the teams that any contact with the car would constitute working on it.
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This originally promoted George Russell into third place, but Aston Martin then requested a right of review that was heard after midnight local time in Jeddah. Subsequently, the stewards accepted that such an agreement about touching the car didn’t exist, with Aston Martin showing seven different examples of the jack being in contact with the car while a penalty was served without being further penalized.
The submission from Aston Martin was deemed to be 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.” This meant the right of review as admissible.
“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,” the stewards’ decision read.
“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.”
The reversal means Alonso is reinstated in third place, giving him the 100th podium of his Formula 1 career.
