Following his reinstatement at the third-place at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso claimed his 100th career podium.
He was stamped with 10 second penalty after finishing third on Sunday. Due to that, his standing changed from 3rd to 4th, hence losing his podium. Aston Martin lodged an appeal to FIA and the penalty got reversed.
"Having reviewed the new evidence, we concluded that there was no clear agreement, as was suggested to the stewards previously, that could be relied upon to determine that parties had agreed that a jack touching a car would amount to working on the car," the FIA said in a statement, according to Times of India.
"In the circumstances, we considered that our original decision to impose a penalty on Car 14 (Alonso) needed to be reversed and we did so accordingly."
Alonso was nonchalant about the penalty. He exclaimed he was happy that he got to celebrate it at the podium. However, he put the blame on FIA for the wrongly given penalty.
"I'm not too upset," he said. "It was good and it doesn't hurt much. I was on the podium, I took the pictures, I got the trophy. I celebrated with the champagne."
"You can't apply the penalty 35 laps after the pit-stop. They had enough time to inform us. If I knew about the penalty, I would have had 11 seconds with the car."
Alonso was extremely enthusiastic about the mechanism of the car manufactured by Aston Martin.
"These guys have made a fantastic car, a fantastic execution of the race here and in Bahrain, with the strategy and now two podiums," Alonso said.
"These guys give me power and I push all way through and in qualifying laps too.The Red Bulls are out of reach, but the rest were behind us so I'm happy with that.".
