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. Alonso, 41, finished third in the second race of the season, behind race-winner Sergio Perez and championship leader Max Verstappen, both Red Bull. Ad 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.

Saudi Arabian Grand PrixVerstappen sets pace at FP2 ahead of Saudi Arabian Grand Prix17/03/2023 AT 19:01 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.