After a “right of review”, the FIA has ruled in Alonso and Alpine’s favor. According to them, Haas was late turning in the protest by 24 minutes.
The FIA first deemed Alpine’s protest inadmissible
Formula 1 team Alpine’s FIA hearing has first concluded that the penalty for Fernando Alonso will remain in place after the protest of Alpine is inadmissible. After an official protest from Haas, towards both Sergio Perez and Alonso, the stewards “prescribed” a 30-second time penalty at the end of the race.
Haas’ reason behind the protest
While Perez’s front wing was deemed safe, the same could not be said about Alonso’s wing mirror. His car suffered a great impact with Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, the ground, and a barrier, but miraculously survived. Of course, he had to pit, which put him dead last. Then, Alonso made the drive of his life only to be disappointed again.
His right mirror mount was broken, and it kept dangling before finally breaking off to sit in the middle of the track. Haas is especially sensitive on this issue. Its driver, Kevin Magnussen, was quickly given a penalty after his front wing suffered minor damage in the Singapore Grand Prix.
Alpine doing everything to keep its points
The FIA judged that “there is no ability or right for any party to “protest” a decision of the Stewards nor against a summons to a hearing.”
According to the FIA: “The appropriate course of action for Alpine, if it disagreed with the Decision of the Stewards, would have been to appeal to the FIA International Court of Appeal, and to do that it would have to have given notice of intention to appeal to the Stewards within one hour of the Decision, as prescribed in the FIA International Sporting Code and the FIA Judicial and Disciplinary Rules.”
Needless to say, Alpine took advantage of its “right of review”. The sporting law allows it to do so within 14 days of the end of the problematic competition “to determine if a significant and relevant new element has been discovered which was not available to BWT Alpine at the time of the Decision.”
Alpine also states that Alonso was not informed by the race control about his damaged car. According to him, that would make more than half of the grid retire their cars if they are deemed unsafe because of any damage.
However, the reason to initiate the penalty process is different. Since the team didn’t know that Haas missed the deadline until 20:53 on Sunday, this information can be treated as “new” to them. This itself resulted in the Haas protest being deemed inadmissible. Therefore, Alonso will keep his 7th place in the 2022 United States Grand Prix.
