Fernando Alonso has been given a 30-second time penalty which drops him from seventh place to 15th in the United States Grand Prix.
The stewards upheld a protest by the Haas team and ruled Alpine ran Alonso’s car in an unsafe condition because one of its mirrors fell off during the race. They also heard a second protest Haas brought, against Red Bull, which it dismissed.
At a hearing Haas pointed out that on three occasions this year one of its cars has been shown the black and orange flag due to a loose front wing end plate. Haas’s representatives – team principal Guenther Steiner and chief race engineer Ayao Komatsu – argued Alonso’s car was unsafe.
Alonso’s right-hand wing mirror came loose after his collision with Lance Stroll. Following the clash he returned to the pits where his front wing was replaced but the damaged mirror received no attention. Around 38 minutes later it fell off. During that time Haas’s team manager Peter Crolla twice alerted race control to the loose mirror and was told the matter was being looked into.
Alpine sporting director Alan Permane said his team were not to blame for the mirror falling off. He claimed the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix established a precedent for drivers being allowed to race with loose mirrors, as Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc did so in that race.
The stewards determined “the evidence shows that car 14 was driven firstly with the mirror flapping for a significant number of laps, then with no mirror after it fell off.”
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The FIA’s technical delegate Jo Bauer agreed the flapping mirror “was dangerous and it could come loose and hit another driver causing injury” and added “the car was unsafe to be driven with a mirror missing”. His view was shared by the FIA’s head of single-seater matters, Nikolas Tombazis.
The stewards determined the car was not “in a safe condition throughout a race” and this was the “responsibility of the Alpine team”, and disagreed the 2019 Suzuka race established a precedent. They imposed a 10-second stop and go penalty on Alonso, which is converted to a 30 second post-race penalty, and drops him out of the points places. Sebastian Vettel, Haas’s Kevin Magnussen, Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon all gain points as a result.
Despite ruling against Alpine, the stewards also expressed their concern the team were not given the same warning Haas had on three occasions this year. “The stewards are deeply concerned that car 14 [Alonso] was not given the black and orange flag, or at least a radio call to rectify the situation, despite the two calls to race control by the Haas team.”
The stewards did not find in favour of Haas’s other protest, concerning Sergio Perez’s Red Bull, which shed one of its front wing endplates early in the race.
Bauer stated that after Perez’s endplate fell off Red Bull supplied photographs of their car which allowed him to determine it was not unsafe. Tombazis agreed with his view and the stewards accordingly dismissed Haas’s protest against Red Bull.
In both cases the stewards agreed to admit Haas’s protests despite the team having failed to submit them within 30 minutes of the publication of the provisional classification, as required by the rules, as they “determined that the compliance with the deadline was not possible in this case.”
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