19/03/2023
NEWS STORY
Fernando Alonso has been credited with third place in today's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after the stewards reversed their decision.
The Spaniard, who finished third on the road, was penalised shortly after the end of the race for not serving his 5s time penalty during the race.
Handed another 10s penalty, this meant he dropped from 3rd to 4th.
However, Aston Martin subsequently appealed the decision and several hours after the race the stewards performed a U-Turn and handed third place back to the Spaniard.
In support of the Petition for Review, the stewards were shown minutes of the latest SAC meeting and video evidence of 7 different instances where cars were touched by the jack while serving a similar penalty to the one imposed on Alonso without being penalized.
The clear submission by Aston Martin 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 for the purposes of Article 54.4 (c) of the Sporting Regulations, was incorrect and therefore the basis of the Steward's decision was wrong.
In the light of the petition, the stewards had to decide if there was a "significant and relevant new element [that was] discovered which was unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned".
If there was such an element(s) then the stewards would need to consider whether the decision needed to be modified in any way.
Having reviewed the video evidence presented and having heard from a representative of Aston Martin and the relevant members from the FIA, the stewards determined that there did exist significant and relevant new evidence as required under Article 14.1.1 to trigger a review of the decision, in particular the video evidence and the verbal evidence from the team and from the FIA.
"It was clear to us that the substratum of the original decision, namely the representation of there being an agreement, was called into question by the new evidence," said the stewards. "We therefore proceeded to hear the substance of the request for review."
Having reviewed the new evidence, the stewards concluded that there was no clear agreement, as was suggested 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, they considered their original decision to impose a penalty on Alonso needed to be reversed and did so accordingly.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Jeddah here.