A page registered in the 2022 United States Grand Prix not uplifting regarding the handling of a regulatory case by the Race Stewards. Fernando Alonso, in fact, raced with the right hand mirror damaged after take-off which saw him as the protagonist following a contact in the straight line with the Aston Martin of Lawrence Stroll, who suddenly moved to the left in an attempt to defend himself from the attack by the two-time Spanish champion.
Despite the ‘flight’ and a significant impact against the guard rail, the Alpine driver managed to continue the race, even finishing in seventh position in the points. However, during the 49th lap of the 56 scheduled, while overtaking Kevin Magnussen’s Haas on the straight, Alonso’s A522 definitively lost its right-hand mirror. The Haas appealed given that the Iberian’s Alpine was allowed to race in unsafe conditions. In fact, during the season, Kevin Magnussen became a subscriber to the orange-black flag for front wings to be replaced after contacts in the first meters of the race, dynamics badly digested by Gunther Steiner who, as soon as the opportunity arose, tried to get justice not only for matters of principle, but also to recover two points in the standings.
The Stewards accepted Haas’s protest by penalizing Fernando Alonso by 30 seconds, but Alpine managed to restore the original finishing order given that the US team’s complaint was presented out of time. The formal defect put the US team’s protest out of the game, regardless of what the merit of the dispute was. Haas was convinced that she had an hour of time after speaking with the Stewards of the Course, but in reality the regulation sets the limit the 30 minutes after the checkered flag.
As reported by the Spanish newspaper Brand it was even the Clerk of the Course who gave information that turned out to be wrong to Haas, Niels Wittich, who risks his job on a par with Eduardo Freitas after only one year in Race Direction. The Wittich-Freitas relay definitely left teams and drivers to be desired, displaced by different interpretations in the face of identical situations on paper. As FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem underlined in a press conference held during the rest day of the Dakar, the Race Directors in 2023 could be different from those seen in action in 2022. Indeed, Sulayem is working to boost the referee system of F1 and has already signed two experts from the Premier League, the English Serie A of football.
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