28/10/2022
NEWS STORY
Protest of Fernando Alonso's car in the United States Grand Prix takes a new twist as the Spaniard's 7th place finish is reinstated.
Despite the stewards decision earlier that Alpine's protest against the penalty was inadmissible, the French team persisted with a "right of review" into Haas' original protest, claiming that it was lodged outside the permitted time, 24 minutes to be precise.
A further hearing has now found in favour of the French team and reinstated Alonso's result.
"BWT Alpine F1 Team thanks the FIA stewards for convening and reaching a positive conclusion on the matter involving Car #14 from last weekend's United States Grand Prix," said Alpine in a brief statement.
"The team welcomes the decision made by the aforementioned stewards, whereby Car #14 reinstates its seventh place finish and six points from the race.
"We look forward to continuing our collaborative work alongside the FIA to ensure the racing spectacle is maintained to the highest quality.
"The team now looks forward to competing this weekend at the Mexico City Grand Prix."
Despite upholding Alpine's appeal, the stewards admitted concern that Alonso had been "permitted to remain on track with a mirror assembly hanging loose which finally fell off", and recommended procedures be put in place for monitoring and that "where necessary" there is a requirement for the issues to be rectified, which is currently what happens.
This could be done, they claimed, via a radio call to the team or the displaying of the black and orange flag "requiring the car to return to the pits for the problem to be repaired".
Alpine's main argument related to Haas' late submission of its protest which was against the rules of the International Sporting Code, and while the code allows stewards to accept protests after the deadline if it is "impossible" for them to be made on time, the French team insisted that Haas could have lodged its protest earlier.
"The stewards accept the argument of Alpine that the word 'impossible' indeed sets a very high bar and that in hindsight, that very high bar was not met in this case," said the stewards.
"Of significant importance is the fact, unknown to the stewards previously, that Haas could have lodged a handwritten protest within the 30-minute deadline. By definition, this fact alone means that it was not 'impossible' to lodge the protest within 30 minutes and therefore the original protest should not have been admitted."
The stewards therefore reversed their decision that Haas's original protest was admissible and as result ruled "no penalty is to be applied to car #14 and the final classification should be amended and reissued".
Check out our Thursday gallery from Mexico City here.