Fernando Alonso reinstated to podium after penalty overturned – what exactly happened and what next?

Aston Martin Racing’s Fernando Alonso has been restored to third place in the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after a time penalty was overturned, thus securing his 100th career podium.

And after a chaotic back and forth, which involved Alonso being stripped of his podium finish, he was finally confirmed as the third-place finisher.

Let’s break down exactly what happened here.

What happened during the race?

So at the start of the race, Alonso was lined up incorrectly and slightly out of place. This happens quite a lot in F1 but the FIA have decided to really crack down on it this year, so Alonso was penalised.

That meant that during his next pit stop, Alonso had to serve a five-second penalty before any of his pit crew could start working on the car.

Note, the terminology of the rule here is very specific in the wording, it says “work on the car”. Remember that point, it will become relevant later.

Towards the end of the race, both Aston Martin and Mercedes, for whom George Russell was just behind Alonso, got word that the penalty might not have been served correctly. Video images showed that the rear jack operator had their jack touching Alonso’s car before the penalty was over.

That led to Mercedes letting Russell know that there might be a five-second penalty for Alonso, so he should push to keep the gap between himself and the Aston under five seconds.

Of course, at the same time, Aston were warning Alonso there might be a penalty, and he should keep the gap above five seconds.

Alonso dutifully did his job, and ensured a gap of over five seconds, and then went to celebrate his milestone podium.

What happened after the race?

However, shortly after the podium celebrations, there came word that Alonso had been handed a penalty – but it was 10 seconds, not five.

That meant that he was bumped down to fourth, and only narrowly avoided being knocked down to fifth behind the other Mercedes, driven by Lewis Hamilton.

What did Alonso say?

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the race, Alonso was clearly furious with the decision.

“I was on the podium, I did pictures, I took the trophy, I celebrated and now I have apparently three points less. I don’t have 15, I have 12,” he said.

“I think it is more FIA, poor show. You cannot apply a penalty 35 laps after the pit stop. They had enough time to inform about the penalty.

“Today, we didn’t put on a good show for our fans. I know the team is trying to review it with the stewards now because we didn’t understand fully the second penalty.”

What did Russell say?

Well, first of all, we had the ridiculous moment when, during paddock interviews, Russell was told live on camera by Brazilian outfit Esporte Na Band that he had been awarded the podium.

Then Russell was gracious and immediately made it clear that he felt it was harsh on Alonso.

“I understand why these rules are there, we’ve got to stick within the guidelines, a little bit of common sense needs to be shown,” Russell said.

“But then in regards to his pit stop again, I don’t know what happened and why he received a further penalty exactly, but a 10-second penalty is too extreme in that case again.

“It makes it a little bit frustrating for everybody,” he added. “There are a lot of conversations that were going on this weekend about which lines you can touch and which lines you couldn’t touch, especially at the pit exit and at the pit entry.

“In qualifying, we saw a number of cars get laps deleted for touching a bit of the red paint when ending their lap. I thought that was a little bit senseless, really, so I think we all need to come together to find a common centre ground.”

Then what happened?

So Aston didn’t take this punishment lying down. They immediately launched a protest based on two key points. The first is that there were multiple precedents of teams in a similar infringement who were not punished.

And the second argument is that there is no clarity on what constitutes “working” on the car. Remember earlier when we said that would be important?

Well, the Aston argument worked, the FIA agreed to rescind the punishment and Alonso was reinstated back to third.

Wait, didn’t this happen in the first race too?

Yes, you’re right. Incredibly, Esteban Ocon of Alpine suffered both of the same penalties that Alonso did.

First, the Frenchman was penalised for not being lined up on the grid correctly, and then he was hit by a 10-second penalty afterwards for not serving that penalty correctly because one of the pit crew touched the car with their drill.

Like Alonso, the secondary penalty seemed very harsh, but unlike Alonso, there was no appeal because Ocon’s car was having a number of other issues so he finished way down the grid.

So what happens now?

The FIA seemingly has to now act before the next race in Melbourne in a couple of weeks’ time. There has to be clarity on this issue.

F1 journalist Will Buxton tweeted after the race a couple of ideas, either that the pit crew can’t leave the garage until the penalty is served or there is a 1m box around the car that they cannot enter until the penalty is over.

Spanish journalist Albert Fabrega tweeted after the race that he had gone back and looked closely at the race start and had spotted that it wasn’t only Alonso who was out of place.

So now the FIA has to provide some kind of clarity in the next fortnight, on both of these rules. They already have an issue with the dominance of the Red Bull cars, they cannot lose viewers because of vague and confusing rules.