P1 with Matt and Tommy - Bonus ep: Alonso is BACK on the podium!

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Another clown show in the world of F1 as Fernando Alonso is back on the podium after originally being demoted to P4. Will the FIA stewards ever get things right? We discuss in a bonus episode!COME SEE US LIVE! There are just a handful of tickets left for our first London live show, at Leicester Square Theatre on 6th April! Get your tickets before the sell out!Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok.***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the P1 podcast, bonus edition with Matt and Tommy. We're here to talk about the Fernando Alonzo, just ridiculous stages of getting and then not getting and then get it and then not. Does the penalty flying around, like, no one knew what was going on. We didn't know until, what, it's now quarter past 10 at night. and we finally sort of jump on to kind of clarify what went on and also give our opinions on it, Tommy, because I don't know about you, but I'm not happy with how that's gone down.

No, it's just confusing. And I just know that we're probably going to get, finish this podcast, and Alonzo will be fourth again. Who knows? Literally. Okay, so let's run you through exactly what happened. So Fernando Alzo got a penalty for being outside of his grid box. When you actually look at the pictures, you can see,

he's quite heavily to the left, I guess, as if he's in the car, to the left of his grid box. And especially off front, I think from science's perspective, it's very clear he's outside of it. There are a couple of drivers a little bit further down the grid, Tommy, aren't they, that are getting close to potentially being naughty, but clearly still within the threshold. Yeah, they're borderline. I think it's Bottas and I want to say Sonoda as well. But they're obviously just in that. I feel like this is going to become a thing now where when they line up on the grid, we'll all have our magnifying glasses out like, oh, we're more observant than the FIA. We definitely didn't need the magnifying glass out for Fernando Alonzo's grid box position,

did we? So, of course, he got a penalty for that for being outside of his grid box at the start. He then served that five-second penalty under the safety car, which was fine in the sense of we didn't hear anything about it. He went about his way. The jackman, the rear jack man, made contact. with the car, but no one really battered an eyelid until right at the end when suddenly, this is basically what's happened, is that right at the end of the race is when things start,

murmurs started happening that Fernando Alonso had not served his penalty correctly, and then, lo and behold, loses the spot on the podium with a 10 second penalty, but after he's already been on the podium, celebrated, and it was due to the fact the rear jack touched the car before the five seconds was up. You could see it. It was almost immediate, wasn't it, with the contact from the rear jackman? Then after that, Tommy, it's not the end. Because Fernando deontzo's back on the podium, because it's been overturned, and this was due to the fact there was not a specific agreement, apparently, that the rear jackman can't touch the car as part of that five second penalty. So, Aston Martin went about servicing, or at least making convales, or at least making

contact with the car, and in their view, and what clearly the FIA have now realized is that that wasn't part of not doing anything to the car. I mean, from my perspective, that's touching the car. And surely it should be a hard and fast rule, you cannot touch the car for five or however many seconds the penalty is for. Yeah, I don't understand why of all the things, like surely you're still getting an advantage if the rear jack is touching the car early, because otherwise you just do it as soon as they come into the pits. Clearly, they've done it deliberately because they wouldn't have waited five seconds, then put the jack in later.

So they've obviously argued it. And the FIA, as they do, just keep changing their mind. And this is what really, really grinds my gears, Tommy, is all of this confusion just takes away from the awesome drive that Alonzo had, the whole spectacle, most of the casuals, right, that won't have really been on Twitter keeping up to date with all of this.

Realistically, actually, they, if they know no different, then it's fine. There's probably a few of you from this podcast finding out that he lost it, and then got back. Yeah, and just that whole process just doesn't seem to,

well, I mean, the FIA giving out penalties and then the appeal system, I suppose is fair, but the way in which it went about, or they went about it, clearly wasn't right. They didn't notice the fact that there was potentially a breach of the rules and then it was too late being handed out so Alonzo couldn't fight that back, which, to be fair, even with the penalty being overturned and whatnot, because they literally had, you know, a reason to believe that that rear jackman could make contact with the car. Even if that wasn't part of it, I was still angry with the fact that Alonzo couldn't respond to his penalty. And that was due to the slight

incompetence, to put it lightly, of the FIA not being able to keep on top of things. We've seen it before, haven't they? With corner cutting, for example, and some drivers getting penalised, some drivers not. This is the pinnacle of motorsport. How are you missing things? Yeah. If you look at the actual document, this is the document that states that Alonzo got a 10 second penalty.

And in that document, to kind of cut a long story short, it says that he served this penalty and basically they thought. it was fine. Then this ROC, which is the remote operations center in Geneva, which is that VAR thing that we... Which exists. It does exist because I feel like a few, a while back we were like, where's this VAR thing?

But it does exist. And just like VAR, it takes freaking ages. Because they realized on the last lap of the race, the stewards received a report from race control that the car, that Car 14 didn't and they investigated it and then gave a penalty but then they've changed their mind

again. It's quite ridiculous really either is or isn't and it just seems like they don't know their own rules because they had those replays. We saw it in the pit lane happening and they thought it was fine but then it wasn't when they looked at the review and then Aston Martin can come back and argue and go

no the jack the jack man's fine right that he's not part of the pit crew yeah okay then go on fernando you've already done your tweet now saying your third so why not it's just ridiculous and just this whole process just ruins the integrity of the sport realistically because you don't actually know what you're what you're getting you know when you watch a game of football or any sport usually whoever wins or finishes wherever finishes there and you go oh that was good viewing and as i said if and you haven't been keeping up to date with any of this, then actually being naive is brilliant because you wouldn't have known any of this has happened

and nothing's changed because Alonzo's back on the podium. But I guess the question that comes up now is, how do they stop this from happening in the future? Because it's happened two races in a row, Esteban Okon first and then Fernando Alonzo in this race, it looks like there needs to be clearer parameters of what actually you can and can't do to the car when a penalty is being served.

As I said earlier, surely just hands off for five seconds. And if there's dispute over, I guess, timing and whatnot, yeah, there needs to be something that the FIA do that is clear cut, rather, you know, having a light above the gantry, and that's an FIA penalty light. And when they say go, you can go sort of thing,

rather than leaving out to the teams and up to interpretation. I wonder if, yeah, like an FIA delegate can be there in the pit, because essentially the teams are timing it themselves, right? And then going, okay, we're good to go. But an FIA person maybe needs to be there going, right, this is it. Press the button. He tackles the rear jack man. Don't you touch it.

But a beep in there is. It's quite funny you mentioned actually that, you know, in football, the game's over. I was listening to a football podcast the day for the team I support. And they were talking about how. players were complaining at the end of the game and going, well, why do they do it? because it's absolutely ridiculous. They're never going to overturn the decision and go, well, actually, we're now going to cancel those two goals and it's now two or whatever.

And realistically, that is Formula One that can happen because teams are allowed to complain after the race. And it does change far too often. I guess the final point on this, the final discussion point is around, I guess, the process itself, is it as efficient as it could be? Are there things, I suppose the big problem, yeah, I think the big problem is actually identifying when something goes wrong. And for me, my perspective is that they haven't got enough eyeballs on everything that's going

on. And I know Formula One is very complex sports, got 20 cars, anyone can be doing anything at any time. But that for me just shows they've, because it was ROC as you say or whatever, but like, realistically, they must have had a nudge from someone to go and check it on the last lap. Because if they'd had a, yeah, exactly. And if they'd had an inkling before that, they would have clearly highlighted that in a closer span than 35 laps. So it's just, it kind of highlights again that you just don't think there's enough people in the FIA to actually police the sport to the degree in which it needs. Yeah, I guess to play devil's advocate, can that ever be enough?

because they'd have to employ multiple. I mean, Formula One and the FAA, I'm sure, have enough money. Yeah, they don't have much today. Yeah, I don't have much. Only worth, what, like 15 billion or whatever it was valued at recently. Yeah. So with, I hate to keep bringing up football, but obviously with VAR, they have the VR and realistically, that's the only action.

Whereas, you know, say they're doing this VAR of, or ROC, as we'll call it in Formula One, as it's known. They're looking at this, did the Jackman touch the car or not situation. Realistically, you could have like, you know, you're watching Yuki Sonoda and Kevin Magnuson, going, there's probably going to be a crash here, lads. We need to keep an eye on this. And the action's still going on. So I guess, yeah, it could get to the point where they just need a million people. Maybe this is the sad reality of Formula One that this. has always happened and maybe it's something that can't be fixed. But I feel like if Formula One is trying to be this easy, accessible sport for people,

they need to do something because you can't have a result changing constantly. They have to iron it out because not only were they late to the party in terms of giving Fernando under the penalty, but also applying the penalty wrong. Like, if you don't know your own rules and you know how to apply, them. Yeah, I know that you're supposed to have this appeal system and whatnot. But how crazy is that? That they don't get all the facts and figures together to be like, that's the concrete

decision. It's done. Aston go, well, actually, no. Here it says that there's no agreement to the rear. That's just, that's bonkers to me. That's absolutely bonkers. Formula One is an absolutely enormous sport. But I feel like we will be talking about decisions in Formula One, the FIA, until the day we

die really and that's unfortunately part and parcel of what Formula One is about. I know how I'm sure you the amount of teams you know you could I'm sure like astern Martin could look through Red Bulls pit stop and go well technically in the rules it doesn't say you're allowed to do this or whatever and set up this whole debate over it and then it might happen because I don't I don't really understand how a rear Jackman isn't part of the pits because if if they're saying that in the rules it doesn't say if they're saying

well it doesn't say the road jack when it's not allowed to touch the car is like are they saying that every single individual does it say so in the situation of a penalty the front left tire person the right rear tire person because you could just argue anything

Christian Horner off the pit wall maybe lifting the car up himself if he can pick it up you know what I mean? It's crazy but look we thought we'd do a little bonus piece of content podcast video wherever you're watching or listening. So I hope you enjoyed that. Tommy, what's your final thoughts? Sort out, FIA. Get your right together. But I am obviously happy that Fernando's got another podium. Podium 100. And it was funny that we were talking about this. Obviously,

just recorded it after finding out. But we found out because Fernando Alonzo tweeted, 100th podium, woo. And because it's Fernando Alonzo, you don't know if it's him S-housing the entire paddock by going, well, I was on the podium, so I'm counting it. Or it had generally been overturned. So we had that little time where we're waiting, does Fernando know anything? Or is he just being main character, Chaos Fernando, like he always is? And it was both.

Yeah, it was both. He wanted to be the first person to break the news. Of course he did, Mr. Fernando. But no, it's good to see that I think justice has been served, in my opinion. So that's my final thoughts. I hope you enjoyed. And we'll see you very soon. for another piece of content.

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