Why Alonso was able to serve his Saudi Arabian GP penalty DURING the Safety Car period

Sam Hall
Monday 20 March 2023 13:46

Fernando Alonso was eventually the victim of just one penalty in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but how he served this raised more than just one question.

The Aston Martin driver was handed a five-second penalty after just one lap on Sunday for an infringement at the start of the race.

This was due to the fact that the Spaniard had positioned his AMR23 too far to the left, and he was not entirely within the confines of his grid slot.

When serving his penalty, Alonso's car was touched by the rear jack. This was raised to the stewards on the final lap and a 10-second penalty was subsequently dished out.

However, this was later rescinded after the stewards confirmed there was no agreement to suggest "that a jack touching a car would amount to working on the car".

This promoted Alonso back into the top three positions to claim his 100th F1 podium.

But what about the other question?

READ MORE: F1 Drivers' Standings after the 2023 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix

Serving a penalty under Safety Car conditions

In other categories, the rules are very clear that mandatory pit stops and penalties cannot be served when the race has been neutralised.

Put simply, to take a penalty at this point would lessen the overall impact of the sanction and allow a team or driver a 'cheap' escape route.

However, F1 is an exception in this case, as is made clear in the sporting regulations in article 54.3.

The article reads: The stewards may impose any one of the penalties below on any driver involved in an Incident:

a) A five (5) second time penalty. The driver must enter the pit lane, stop in his pit stop position for at least five seconds and then re-join the sprint session or the race. The relevant driver may however elect not to stop, provided he carries out no further pit stop before the end of the sprint session or the race. In such cases five (5) seconds will be added to the elapsed the sprint session or race time of the driver concerned.

In both of the above cases the driver concerned must carry out the penalty the next time he enters the pit lane and, for the avoidance of doubt, this includes any stop the driver makes whilst a VSC or safety car procedure is in use.