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Alpine has announced its intention to protest the penalty given to Fernando Alonso following the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
Alonso finished seventh in the race but was relegated to 15th after Haas lodged a protest citing a technical infringement on the Spaniard’s car.
It argued, successfully, that a mirror on the Alpine should have resulted in the two-time world champion being shown the black and orange ‘meatball’ flag.
Stewards initially met with Haas to discuss the protest’s admissibility, deeming it could be heard.
It subsequently ruled that Alonso’s car was not “in a safe condition throughout the race,” handing him a post-race 10-second stop-and-go penalty.
That translated to 30 seconds being added to his race time, demoting him to 15th in the final classification.
However, Alpine has since announced its intention to challenge that outcome, arguing that the penalty should be invalidated owing to the protest being lodged too late.
“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,” it announced in a statement.
“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.”
