He led the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix for a brief, glorious moment as fans got a glimpse at what a competitive 2023 could possibly look like.
It was, however, short-lived, with Alonso handed a 5-second time penalty for lining up outside of his grid box, ending up about half a tyre’s width to the left of his P2 spot.
To be served at his next pit stop, the penalty came under a safety car brought about by Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll’s retirement.
The pace of the Aston Martin kept Alonso in a strong position for the rest of the race, coming home third behind a victorious Sergio Perez, as well as a surging Max Verstappen who charged from 15th on the grid to second.
After the race, Alonso tore into the FIA for the length of time it took them to give the second penalty.
“I think it is more FIA, poor show today,” he said.
“You cannot apply a penalty 35 laps after the pitstop.
“They had enough time to inform about the penalty because even if I knew that maybe then I open up 11 seconds to the car behind.
“I know the team is trying to review it with the stewards now because we didn’t understand fully the second penalty.
“I don’t care that much as I have celebrated and now I have three points less.
“I was on the podium, I did pictures, I took the trophy, I celebrated and now I have apparently three points less - I don’t have 15, I have 12.”
With Alonso closely followed by the Mercedes pair of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, the stewards’ ruling that the 5 second penalty had been incorrectly served put him in serious danger of handing Mercedes their first podium finish of the year.
The officials originally ruled that, while serving the penalty, the rear jack to lift Alonso’s car up for the tyre change had made contact with the AMR23 before the five-second penalty had been completed.
Teams are not allowed to work on the car while a time penalty is being served in the pit box.
With a similar incident happening to Alpine’s Estaban Ocon in Bahrain in the first race of the season, the precedent had been well established for Alonso to be handed an additional 10-second time penalty, dropping him from P3 to P4.
Teams have a a right of review of sporting decisions, and a clearly agitated Aston Martin submitted a letter to the stewards appealing the decision to give Alonso the additional 10-second penalty.
While the stewards’ decision was made on the basis that the teams had previously agreed that “no part of the car could be touched while a penalty was being served as this would constitute working on the car,” Aston Martin claimed in their appeal that this was incorrect, and that simply touching the car of itself, including with a jack, did not constitute “working” on the car for the purposes of the Sporting Regulations.
Upon being presented with video evidence, and hearing representations from Aston Martin and the FIA, the stewards concluded that there was no clear agreement that a jack simply touching the car would amount to working on the car.
The stewards subsequently reversed their additional 10-second penalty on Alonso, raising him back up to P3.
The reinstatement marks a journey that started with Alonso’s first podium at the tender age of 21, the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix, through to his 100th at age 41.
Outside of Alonso’s 7,301 day journey for a hundredth podium, it was another story of Red Bull domination as Sergio Perez led the vast majority of the race to bring home a 1-2 finish for the Milton Keynes-based team.
The race saw another moment of animosity between the two Red Bulls in the dying stages, with Verstappen asking about the fastest lap, then held by Perez.
“We’re not concerned about that at the moment, Max,” replied an engineer.
“Yeah, but I am,” came the reply from the cockpit of the world champion.
Carlos Sainz took sixth with his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc seventh after starting 12th as a penalty for changing components in his power unit.
Alpine rounded out the back of the points with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly finishing P8 and P9 respectively, while Haas got their first points finish since last year’s United States Grand Prix, with Kevin Magnussen extending his run as the only driver to score any points for the team since Austria last year.
