Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin, Jeddah Corniche Circuit, 2023

Late penalty call “not a very good job” by FIA – Alonso

2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

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Fernando Alonso has questioned why it took so long for the FIA to issue his second penalty during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The Aston Martin driver was swiftly penalised for failing to line up in his starting position correctly. He served the penalty when he made his sole pit stop of the race before half-distance during a Safety Car period.

However after the end of the race the FIA announced he had been given a further penalty for failing to serve the original one correctly during that pit stop. That dropped him from third place at the finish to fourth behind George Russell.

“It feels strange that it took one hour, 35 laps to apply the penalty,” Alonso told the official Formula 1 channel after the race. “I was in the podium with all my sponsors, my team and things like that. They decide after, so that’s not a very good job from them, but that is their problem.”

His original penalty was applied for being out of his starting position on the left-hand side. “That was my mistake,” Alonso admitted. “But it was good to lead the race at the beginning for one or two laps, to see the Aston Martin leading the field.

“Then when they told me that I have a five second [penalty], I said, ‘okay, I need to drive a little bit faster and I need to make that time’. So it’s what I tried to do in the first stint, the car was very, very good to drive again. Then the Safety Car came, so we all took the opportunity to stop and then from that point onwards it was just controlling the race.”

Despite his penalty, Alonso took satisfaction from his car’s performance on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

“We lost three points from 15 to 12. But I think it doesn’t change the feeling. The feeling of the car was very good, we were second fastest again controlling the Mercedes and in front of Ferrari. So, I feel super happy.”

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2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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10 comments on “Late penalty call “not a very good job” by FIA – Alonso”

  1. The timing of the penalty is irrelevant.

    If Mr Alonso should ask any questions, it should be about the brain fart of his rear jack man.

    1. Your comment is irrelevant.

    2. No. it’s not irrelevant. You can try to build a 10-second gap if the announcement is timely

    3. Alonso said he wasn’t bothered by the penalty and was still very happy. Yet F1TV kept asking him about it. They basically forced him to say something critical.

    4. Well, about that – since the FIA later retracted the penalty because it was not at all that clearly defined that touching the car constitutes “working on the car” as defined in the rules – that is a BS comment @proesterchen.

      Even before that, if it was so easy to detect, why then did it take the FIA stewarding system 35 laps to revisit their earlier call that the penalty was actually served fine and wait until the end of the race so we got another podium mess”

  2. 30 Laps and a podium later….
    Hey Guy!
    Do you remenber?
    Yes? You do?
    Ok
    10 seconds penalty.

  3. Why not a warning first about the grid positioning? Same with Ocon last week.
    They gained no advantage from it so why not make them aware to take care next time?
    It’s different if they have overshot the mark but not by an inch or two to the left or right. Ridiculous decisions.

  4. If, in fact.the rear jack was touching the car why was Alonso’s penalty rescinded?

    1. Because they showed 14 examples of that happening in the past and no penalty being applied. My question is why not just apply the five second penalty with discretion. There was no advantage gained and certainly none if you add another five seconds. And he actually disadvantaged himself by too far to the left in the grid slot. So, some g*ddamn discretion needs to be used by they clowns.

    2. As Nick T. metions, despite the FIA claiming in their penalty that “touching the car” was a clear and accepted (between the FIA, F1 and the teams) of meeting the term defined in the rules “working on the car”, they later had to admit that was not actually true, no such agreement was in place.

      AM showed the FIA a boatload of past cases where it had not been that way and rightly won the argument. Now the FIA is holding a vote/meeting next week where they want to “clarify” i.e. define this.

Comments are closed.