Celebrations can resume in the Aston Martin camp with Fernando Alonso reinstated to the podium following a successful right to review from his squad.
The positive outcome means a post-race 10 second time penalty is removed and the Spaniard is shuffled back up the order from fourth to third.
With such news Alonso joins an exclusive group of just five others to have officially stood on the podium 100 times throughout their careers.
The incident in question came on Alonso’s only pit stop where he was required to serve a 5 second penalty for improperly taking his grid box off the race start. Serving the time penalty under the race’s sole Safety Car worked wonders for the Spaniard who returned to the track to hold third and remain there comfortably until the end of the race.
It wasn’t until some 30 laps later when news of a potential infringement during that penalty came to light after a crew member was seen making contact with the car with the rear jack.
Alonso stood on the podium and had celebrated by this point only to be awarded 10 seconds for George Russell to be elevated to third.
Aston Martin’s review came in the terms of the wording of the regulations which specify crew members may not work on the car whilst a penalty is served.
Article 54.4 c) of F1’s Sporting Regulations states: “While a car is stationary in the pit lane as a result of incurring a penalty in accordance with Articles 54.3a) or 54.3b) above, it may not be worked on until the car has been stationary for the duration of the penalty.”
They argued no work had been done, rather that the crew members contact with the car had come both whilst the car was stationary and with no work being done.
Initial investigations made note that an agreement was in place between teams that making contact with a car constituted work being done on the car, something which Aston Martin refuted and successfully so.
A statement released by the FIA read:
“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.”
Now Alonso can finally relax, rightly reinstated to the podium for his 100th celebration which cements him a further place in history.
Header image: Sky Sports UK
