Fernando Alonso has been stripped of his podium result at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after he was found to have served his in-race penalty correctly.
As a result, George Russell has been promoted to third place for Mercedes.
Shortly after the start of the race, Alonso was hit with a five-second time penalty for being out of position in his grid slot.
Replays showed that he was too far to the left for the starting procedure.
“Obviously I made a mistake, so when they told me about the 5 second penalty I said, “OK, I need to drive a little bit faster” to get those 5 seconds. I need to review,” Alonso said, prior to bein notified about the punishment that dropped him off the podium.
Alonso served the penalty during his one and only pit stop of the race, which came under a Safety Car following a retirement for team-mate Lance Stroll.
However, after the race, he was immediately under investigation again as Race Control suspected that the penalty wasn’t served correctly.
The Stewards found this to be the case and handed Alonso a 10-second time penalty, demoting him to fourth in the final order.
It was decided that one of the mechanics began touching the car prior to the five seconds being completed.
Aston Martin suspected prior to the chequered flag that Alonso could be in danger, and told him to create a five-second gap to Russell behind.
But the end penalty is double what the team anticipated, meaning it has lost a back-to-back podium finish.
