Recap of the facts: Alonso is penalized by the FIA with a 30-second penalty following a protest by Haas after the USA Grand Prix in Austin last weekend. Haas’ protest was received by the FIA 54 minutes after the provisional ranking was published. That is 24 minutes after the 30-minute protest deadline given to the teams.
The FIA stewards, although late, have decided to exercise their right as allowed by the regulations to address the protest, despite being late. The decision rendered by the stewards then penalizes Alonso.
However, the Alpine team does not understand why this protest was admitted by the race commissioners and therefore decides to appeal. The appeal is made against the penalty given by the commissioners. This is where there is a nuance in the regulations.
The FIA then decides to reject the appeal, as a time penalty cannot be the subject of an appeal. It took several days for the FIA to inform Alpine that the appeal was not admissible. The decision cannot therefore be changed, but it is not the penalty itself that is a problem but rather the fact that the protest was received by the FIA.
Alpine then decides to change strategy and instead of requesting a different penalty, decides to protest against the protest by using a “right of review”.
The right of revision allows teams to request the FIA to reconsider the eligibility of a protest. It is at this point that the FIA decides to reverse course and reject the initial protest from Haas, as it was submitted after the deadline.
Without this protest from Haas, deemed unacceptable, no penalty is therefore given to Alonso who ultimately never lost his 7th position.
