Fernando Alonso says an appeal hearing into the post-race penalty that dropped him out of the points at the United States Grand Prix will set an important precedent for Formula 1 as the sport deals with its latest flashpoint with the governing body.
Alonso had completed an epic recovery from the back of the field to finish seventh after his lap-22 crash with Lance Stroll, scoring a valuable six points for Alpine’s bid to finish fourth in the constructors championship ahead of McLaren.
Alonso was sent airborne in the smash but was able to continue, albeit with damage, including to his right-side wing mirror.
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For several laps the mirror flapped in the wind before eventually making a bid for freedom and breaking off the car.
Little was thought of it at the time, but after the race Haas protested that Alonso’s car was unsafe both with a damaged mirror and also without the mirror once it had fallen off.
The American team argued that Alonso should have been shown the black and orange ‘meatball’ flag that requires a car to pit for repairs. A Haas car had been meatballed three times this season for damaged front wings that race control had considered dangerous.
Haas said it had notified race control of the issue more than once but that no action had been taken.
The stewards agreed and handed Alonso a stop-go penalty, which translates to a 30-second post-race penalty, which dropped him from seventh to 15th.
The stewards also took a surprising swipe at the race director, saying they were “deeply concerned that [Alonso] was not given the black and orange flag or at least a radio call to rectify the situation”.
But the penalty outraged the French team, which has launched an appeal against the decision on several grounds, including that the damaged car had already been cleared by the FIA.
“The FIA has the right to black and orange flag a car during the race if they consider it unsafe and, on this occasion, they assessed the car and decided not to action the flag,” the team said in a statement.
“Moreover, after the race, the FIA technical delegate considered the car legal.
“The team also believes due to the protest being lodged 24 minutes past the specified deadline, it should not have been accepted and therefore the penalty should be considered as invalid.”
Alpine also pointed out that there are precedents for cars completing races without mirrors. Both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc lost their mirrors at the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix but were allowed to continue.
The stewards have accepted the application to appeal and have summoned Alpine and Haas to a hearing in Mexico City on Thursday evening (Friday 10am AEDT).
NOT JUST ONE ISSUE
Taking to social media to vent his frustration, Alonso said the hearing would set up an important marker for how rules are interpreted.
“Thanks for all the messages I received yesterday and today. It’s one of those rare time in sport that I feel we are all on the same page and share the same opinion towards rules and regulations,” he wrote.
“Therefore Thursday is an important day for the sport that we love so much, as this decision will dictate if we are going in the right direction for the future.”
The penalty dispute is just the latest in a growing list of tension points between the FIA, the stewards, the teams and the drivers over consistency in the governance of the sport this season.
The decision to penalise Alonso came only minutes after the stewards opted against penalising Sergio Perez after a similar protest was brought by Haas.
The Red Bull Racing machine ran with a flapping front wing endplate before it broke free of the car, an identical situation to that which Haas has found itself called into the pits by race control this year, but the stewards decided it wasn’t a punishable offence in this case because the endplate fell off some laps later.
Alonso was also at odds with the stewards’ decision to penalise Stroll with a three-place grid drop in Mexico for their monster crash, with both him and the Canadian saying they believed it was a racing incident. The pair will be teammates at Aston Martin next year.
Max claims US Grand Prix, RB win CC | 03:10
This isn’t the first time Alonso has openly slammed the governing body. He was forced to apologise for accusing the stewards of “incompetence” and being “not very professional” after he was penalised for driving off track at the Miami Grand Prix, and he went on accuse race director Niels Wittich of not having “knowledge about racing before being a race director”.
This was at the time Wittich was taking a controversially hard line on the wearing of jewellery while racing.
Several other drivers have been critical of the governing body through the year, but frustration peaked at the previous round in Japan, when a truck and recovery tractor were sent onto the track in the heavy rain and without all driver having caught up to the safety car.
Drivers were particularly incensed given the issue of recovery vehicles on track in mixed conditions had been raised with the then race director, Eduardo Freitas, just two days earlier at the regular drivers briefing.
The FIA undertook an investigation into the race and subsequently suspended its rotating race directorship model, with Niels Wittich permanently at the helm for the rest of the season. Wittich had shared the role with Freitas this year after Michael Masi was sacked from the job during the off-season.
Drivers have received the report positively but will give their feedback this weekend after having had the chance to read it thoroughly.
The governing body also foreshadowed other regulatory changes for next season, including to address confusion around the points system that meant Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen were unsure about whether the Dutchman had won the drivers championship at the end of the shortened Japanese Grand Prix.
