When the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix stewards changed their original decision and Fernando Alonso returned to his 3rd place, one of the journalists commented: “Alonso became the first driver in Formula 1 history to finish twice in the 100th place to finish. time on stage. “.
With all the irony and paradox of the sentence, it really mirrors the strange events of last night: everyone saw Alonso finish third on track, climb the podium together with Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen, celebrate this performance and then a 10-second penalty, which was subsequently cancelled. And we talked about all this.
A few hours after the race, Fernando shared on social networks a bright poster prepared on the occasion of his anniversary podium, which is an extraordinary event in itself, and accompanied the poster with a short comment: “Thank you Formula 1!”
Although the circumstances associated with this event were not the most pleasant, it could not spoil the mood of the Spaniard, because the main thing is that his result was finally officially recognized and confirmed.
“Everything went great,” Alonso said in a short video message to fans. – Admittedly I made a mistake at the start by putting the car in the wrong position, but the AMR23 allowed us to start perfectly, and we led the race for a while!
For at least two laps the Aston Martin car led the race – I hope this wasn’t the last time! Then I attacked the whole distance, everything was great and in the first segment we created enough distance from the rivals to serve the penalty without losing position. As a result, we climbed the podium, which brought great joy to everyone, received a cup and celebrated this achievement with champagne.
The mood is great, I enjoyed piloting every lap – I think the team did a great job! And for the Australian Grand Prix we are full of optimism!”
Since everything that happened after the finish of the race, all this mess with fines, the protest filed by the team and its subsequent satisfaction, does not paint the FIA or Formula 1, and only causes outrage among the fans , the championship organizers decided to change the rules by the next season phase.
“The stewards’ subsequent decision to hear the team and grant them the right of review (the original decision) was the result of new evidence regarding the definition of the concept of ‘work with the car’,” the FIA said. in a statement – Earlier there were already ambiguous precedents, and in this case we had to turn to them, given the specific circumstances of what happened.
Therefore, this matter will be brought to the next meeting of the Sports Advisory Committee, which will be held on Thursday, March 23, and clarification will be given before the Australian Grand Prix.
This open approach, the willingness to rethink decisions and the drive to improve all processes is part of the FIA’s mission to ensure that the championship is conducted in a fair and transparent manner.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
