F1 legend has milestone podium reinstated as late-night appeal proves successful

Fernando Alonso has had his 100th podium reinstated after a late-night appeal by his Aston Martin team was upheld.

Alonso finished third in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but was demoted to fourth after a post-race investigation added 10 seconds to his race time.

The 10-second punishment was for failing to fully serve an earlier five-second penalty during his pit stop for starting the race from outside his grid box.

In the original decision the stewards had found that the rear jack operator had engaged the jack before the five-second penalty had been completed.

Race control argued that “what was agreed at the [sporting advisory committee] meetings with the teams was that no part of the car could be touched while a penalty was being served as this would constitute working on the car”.

However, Aston Martin lodged a petition to have the penalty reviewed, which the stewards upheld because there is no evidence of any agreement between the teams that touching a car constitutes a breach of the rules when serving a penalty.

“The clear submission by the team was that the alleged representation of an agreement between the FIA and the teams that touching the car in any way, including with a jack, would constitute ‘working’ on the car … was incorrect and therefore the basis of the stewards decision was wrong,” the appeal statement said.

“In support of the petition for review, the stewards were shown minutes of the latest [sporting advisory committee] meeting and video evidence of seven different instances where cars were touched by the jack while serving a similar penalty to the one imposed on [Alonso] without being penalised.

“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.

“In the circumstances, we considered that our original decision to impose a penalty on [Alonso] needed to be reversed and we did so accordingly.”

Earlier, Alonso insisted the initial decision to strip him of his podium fiish “doesn’t hurt too much” but admitted the FIA had more than enough time to warn him of his impending penalty.

“It doesn’t hurt much, to be honest,” Alonso told Sky Sports.

“I was on the podium, I did the pictures, I took the trophy, I celebrate with champagne and yeah, now I have apparently three points less. I don’t have 15, I have 12.

“But I think it’s more FIA fall short today more than disappointment from ourselves. You cannot apply [the penalty] 35 laps after the pit stop. They had enough time to inform of the penalty.

“Because even if I knew that, maybe I open 11 seconds to the car behind. Today, we didn’t put on a good show for our fans.”

With the penalty applied, Alonso was dropped from third to fourth, with Mercedes’ George Russell switching places.

Alonso initially completed the race with a five-second gap between him and the Brit, but he felt his car had enough pace to extend the gap to 10 seconds and ensure he would have maintained his podium.

“No-one told me this five seconds,” Alonso said.

“They told me just five seconds in the first 15, and I opened seven or eight [seconds]. Then in the second [penalty], there was no information at all. Not even an investigation.

“I know the team is trying to review the thing with the stewards right now because we didn’t understand fully the second penalty.

“I care, but I don’t care that much because I celebrate and now I have three points less. Let’s try to recover those in Australia.”