Fernando Alonso has been handed a five-second time penalty following the Canadian Grand Prix, dropping him from P7 to P9 in the race results. The Alpine driver was called to the stewards after the event for allegedly changing direction more than once during his battle with Valtteri Bottas. As well as examining video evidence and telemetry from Bottas' car, the stewards heard from both Alonso and Bottas in relation to the incident, as well their team representatives. They found Alonso to have breached Article 2 b) of Chapter IV Appendix L of the FIA International Sporting Code. An FIA document states: "Between Turns 10 and 12, on the penultimate lap of the race, car 14 made repeated changes of direction to defend against car 77 who had to lift at one point and briefly lost momentum. "Whilst noting the driver's point that at no stage was any point of car 77 alongside car 14, the stewards consider this to be a clear breach of the above regulation. "The stewards therefore impose a five seconds time penalty in line with that imposed for a similar incident in Australia 2022." Alonso's drop to ninth promotes Bottas and his Alfa Romeo teammate Zhou Guanyu up to P7 and P8 respectively.
No further action for Vettel
Elsewhere, the stewards decided to take no further action after investigating Sebastian Vettel for allegedly failing to keep within 10 car lengths of the car in front under Safety Car conditions. The document on that case reads: "After initially closing up to the car in front under the Safety Car procedure, for a period of time car 5 did not maintain the 10-car length rule. "However, towards the end of the Safety Car period re-closed the gap and then maintained the required position until the race resumption. "The stewards also note that there were other drivers who also failed to keep to the 10-car lengths at different times during the procedure but that all were compliant at the end of the Safety Car period. "Therefore the stewards conclude that a penalty for car 5 is not appropriate in these circumstances."
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