Due to penalties, the final result in Imola changed, Alonso scored a point

Lance Strollt and Kimi Räikkönen were also penalized after the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, and the latter also lost the first points of himself and his team this year due to a rather astonishing misunderstanding.

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Although neither side was found guilty by the stewards in the clash between George Russell and Valtteri Bottas, they still distributed the penalties after the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Lance Stroll and Kimi Räikkönen didn’t swim either, and the latter was also eliminated from the scorers, thanks to which Fernando Alonso scored his first point this year.

The Canadian driver of the Aston Martin was given a 5-second time penalty after the race for cutting through the Tamburello Slam while overtaking Pierre Gasly, gaining a “lasting advantage”.

As a result of the decision, Stroll lost seventh place, which went to Gasly, who finished behind him. The Aston Martin driver was thus officially ranked eighth.

“Supervisors were notified of a possible violation after the race. After watching the videos and listening to the pilots, the inspectors came to the conclusion that the car with start number 18 could not finish overtaking the car with start number 10 in curves 2 and 3 without leaving the track, thus completely cutting off the triple bend. After returning in front of car 10, he did not return the seat, “reads the supervisors’ explanation.

The supervisors accepted Stroll’s argument that he had already been in front of Gasly before leaving the track, but saw that he had not completed the maneuver and was therefore unable to stay on the track.

However, much worse than Stroll was Kimi Räikkönen, who finished 9th in the race, scoring the first points of Alfa Romeo this year, but due to a subsequent 30-second time penalty, he did not end up in the top ten and only finished 13th.

Although the 2007 world champion made a mistake, the bigger blunder was committed by the team. It so happened that on the restart following the red-flag interruption, Räikkönen slipped out of the Tamburello alley and lost two seats as Hamilton and Cunoda also passed by. The Finnish driver then followed in the footsteps of Mercedes and Alpha Tauri, while his engineer told him he could safely take back the lost positions. To this, Räikkönen asked back if this was certain by the time he was told to wait, and then a little later he was told that unfortunately he could not overtake him, stay where he was.

In defense of Alfa Romeo, it could be argued that if someone loses a position in the lead-in circle (which also counts as a safety car take-off) for any reason, it can take it back to the first Safety Car line, but if it fails to do this, you have to drive into the pit lane and wait for the whole field to pass by and then come after them.

So if Räikkönen had overtaken Cunoda and Hamilton to the first Safety Car line, he would not have been penalized.

However, the situation is not so simple, as the rules also state that as soon as the safety car switches off its flashing light, it cannot be overtaken. In Mercedes, the lights went out in turn 10, and in Räikkönen, it was only after turn 13 that it caught up with those ahead. This disrupted Alfa Romeo’s boxing wall, which is why they told their pilot that he would unfortunately have to stay in 10th place.

At the same time, the rules differentiate between a safety car phase and a safety car new ground, so in this case Räikkönen could have safely overtaken it even though Safety Car had switched off its flashing light.

So the team made the mistake of not knowing this, and despite asking the race director on the radio for guidance, there was so little left until the new start that he received no response. So Räikkönen should either have taken back the two failed places or driven him out into the box at the end of the round, but he didn’t do either, so he got a penalty.

Two benefited from the Finnish runner-up, Esteban Ocon from 10th to 9th, and the remarkably weak race Fernando Alonso advanced from 11th to 10th, so the two-time world champion scored for the first time since returning to F1.

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