After working relentlessly throughout the week to earn the podium, Fernando Alonso ultimately had to hand it over to George Russell. Russell, who claimed the surprising gift, echoed Alonso’s efforts and believes it was pretty harsh on him.
As per reports, the Mercedes driver said Alonso was a deserving podium finisher at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. During the post-race conference, the 25-year-old called the penalty on him pretty harshly.
“I’ll take the trophy… but Fernando and Aston deserve the podium”
A gracious @GeorgeRussell63 after inheriting third in Jeddah#SaudiArabianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/QLGlCZBcg3
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 19, 2023
Russell, on the other hand, proved Lewis Hamilton fans wrong. He denied the team’s order to let his teammate through in order to push on the Aston Martin. However, his race engineer said that Alonso served the penalty already.
With this, he managed to keep his place and later on got promoted to P3. However, the LH44 fans are still unhappy about the outcome and a part of them believe the seven-time world champion’s younger teammate declined Hamilton’s chance to have a shot at the podium.
What happened to Alonso in Jeddah?
As the Jeddah race concluded, the Aston Martin driver crossed the finish line behind winner Sergio Perez and P2 Max Verstappen. Everything from there on till the podium celebration was fine until the news broke out on the Spanish driver’s wrongly served penalty.
BREAKING: Fernando Alonso is given a 10s penalty for an incorrectly-served penalty, and loses his podium in Jeddah
He drops to fourth, with George Russell moving up to third#SaudiArabianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/PWA3dM3wI4
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 19, 2023
The stewards came up with a decision that said the team served the five-second time penalty wrongly. The Spaniard earlier received a five-second time penalty for wrongly placing his car during the start of the race.
Since the penalty was served wrongly, the 41-year-old was served slapped with another ten-second time penalty. The former Ferrari driver, who finished the race ahead of Russell, moved back after counting on his time penalty.
Stewards got called out over their decision
The FIA stewards faced huge backlashes over their decision to penalize Alonso. The decision came around 30 laps after the 41-year-old driver served his penalty. Moreover, the decision was announced even after he went up to celebrate his 100th podium.
Calling it a classless act, fans on social media called out FIA. Naming them MAFIA over their extremely late decision, the fans made their voices heard on Twitter with multiple reactions.
Admittedly, had the penalty been announced earlier, the Spaniard had the chance to stay out of Russell’s window. Given he only had five seconds to serve, the former Ferrari man didn’t push his AMR23 to stay out of Russell’s reach.
Had the penalty been announced earlier, the strategy could have been different for the team. All in all, FIA sent in back-to-back harsh penalties in two races. In Bahrain, it was Esteban Ocon and today it was Fernando Alonso.
