Alpine protest 'admissibility of Haas protest' after Fernando Alonso penalty

Alpine

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Alpine protest 'admissibility of Haas protest' after Alonso penalty

Alonso finished seventh but was hit with a post-race penalty

Sam Hall

Monday 24 October 2022 06:02 Updated: 06:19

Alpine has launched action against the "admissibility" of Haas' protest which led to a post-race 10-second stop-go penalty for Fernando Alonso.

Alonso finished seventh in a thrilling United States Grand Prix after recovering from a heart-stopping crash with Lance Stroll.

But this work was undone by a post-race penalty that saw 30-seconds added to the Spaniard's race time and dropped him to 15th.

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In the decision document, the FIA stewards note that the Haas protest was lodged 24 minutes after the deadline that such action can be taken but that "compliance with the deadline was not possible in this case", meaning the protest was admissable.

Alpine, however, does not agree.

In a statement, the team said: "BWT Alpine F1 Team is disappointed to receive a post-race time penalty for Car #14 from today’s United States Grand Prix, which unfortunately means Fernando moves to outside the points-paying positions.

"The team acted fairly and deemed the car remained structurally safe as a result of Fernando's incident with Lance Stroll on lap 22 of the race with the right-side rear view wing mirror detaching from the chassis as a result of accident damage caused by Stroll.

"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. 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.

"As a result of this point, the team has protested the admissibility of the original Haas F1 Team protest."