The Haas Formula 1 team's protest against Sergio Perez has been thrown out by the United States Grand Prix stewards with "no further action" deemed necessary. Fernando Alonso has been hit with a 30 second time penalty, dropping him to P15, after his car was deemed to not be in a safe condition during the race. After the race at Austin - where Kevin Magnussen finished ninth (now eight) to bank two points (now four) at the team's home race - Haas lodged a protest with the stewards for technical infringements on the cars of Alonso and Perez - both of whom were carrying damage after incidents. The team felt this was unfair as Magnussen had been called into the pits multiple times in 2022 after contact left him with a broken front wing end-plate, while both Alonso and Perez were not given the instruction during the race in Austin. After declaring the protests were admissible, the stewards called representatives from Alpine and Red Bull. The protest against Red Bull was thrown out and no further action was taken against the team and Perez, who keeps his fourth place. The protest against Alpine was, on the contrary, upheld by the stewards, who imposed a 10 second Stop and Go penalty to Alonso, which was translated into a 30 second time penalty post race. This drops de Spaniard from P7 to P15, promoting Vettel to P7, Magnussen to P8, Tsunoda to P9 and Ocon to P10.
Stewards ruling on Haas protest against Alpine
During the hearing on the protest lodged against Alpine, Haas asserted that the #14 car was unsafe and noted that their car(s) has been given the black and orange flag on three other occasions this year for situations involving their car being in an unsafe condition. Alpine submitted that the mirror came off through no fault of their driver or team and was due to the collision caused by Lance Stroll. The team also submitted that at only one time during the race after the mirror fell off, was there a car behind Alonso and that the race engineer was warning the driver of the gap to that car. Further, Alpine stated that there was a precedence in Suzuka in 2019 where the cars of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were allowed to continue with mirror problems. FIAs technical delegate, Mr Jo Bauer, submitted that the flapping mirror was dangerous and it could come loose and hit another driver causing injury. Therefore Alonso's car was unsafe. He further stated that a car needs two mirrors and that in his opinion, which the Stewards accepted as expert opinion, the car was unsafe to be driven with a mirror missing. The Stewards determined that the Protest was upheld, as they did not regard the Suzuka incident from 2019 as precedents and according to Article 3.2 of the Sporting Regulations a car must be safe throughout a race. In this case, Alonso's car was not.
Stewards ruling on Haas protest against Red Bull
During the Red Bull hearing Jo Bauer explained that Red Bull contacted him during the race and sent detailed photos of the front wing. Mr Bauer determined during the race that the car was not in an unsafe condition. Having considered the evidence provided, the Stewards determined that the Protest against Red Bull was dismissed.
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