F1 Fans Question FIA On 2021 Lewis Hamilton Championship After Alonso Backtracking: "Utter Failure"
The FIA has come under fire after the chaos of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix when Fernando Alonso was given a penalty after celebrating on the podium.
The Spanish driver was initially given a five-second penalty for being out of position in the grid box at the beginning of the race. As far as the Aston Martin team were aware, this penalty was served during a pit stop and they carried on to celebrate Alonso's 100th career podium finish in third place.
However, the two-time champion was given a ten-second penalty for the first penalty not being served properly. The stewards and FIA claim that the car was jacked up too early, despite work not starting.
Aston Martin appealed the decision and two hours later, it was announced that they had removed the second penalty and Alonso was back into third place.
F1 fans hit out at the FIA over the situation relating it to the controversial 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix where they claimed the results of a race could not be changed after it had finished. One fan wrote to social media:
"Overturning a race result 2 hours after the race finished because the regulations say so. But they couldn't do it in Abu Dhabi 21"
Another fan responded:
"Ofc they could. They just didn’t want to and we know why." [sic]
Someone else responded claiming that the FIA don't like to do anything that might go into Lewis Hamilton's favour, they wrote:
"But it was Lewis Hamilton. So they don't want to, unless it's for his disadvantage."
Another disgruntled fan posted in response:
"The people responsible for the utter failure of the FIA in the last few years hide behind their relative anonymity and the FIA as an organisation to hide their shady behaviour. AD [Abu Dhabi] was never about can’t - it was always about won’t."