A successful protest lodged by Haas against Alpine after the US Grand Prix demoted Fernando Alonso from seventh to fifteenth in the final standings!
Alonso's run to P7 at the Circuit of the Americas came after the Spaniard has collided in the first part of the race with Aston Martin's Lance Stroll.
The Spaniard hit the rear of the Canadian's car when the latter veered slightly left just as Alonso was pulling out of his slipstream. While Stroll retired on the spot, Alonso's car briefly went airborne before brushing the barrier, but the Alpine made it back to the pits where it was fitted with a new front wing before Alonso resumed his race.
However, a loose right rear view mirror on the Alpine eventually fell off the car.
Haas' protest contended that Alonso's car was unsafe due to the loose mirror and that its driver should have received a black-and-orange flag from the marshals ordering him to pit.
That view was eventually upheld by the stewards and FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer who said that "a flapping mirror was dangerous and it could come loose and hit another driver causing injury".
In their ruling, the stewards said they were "deeply concerned that Car 14 was not given the black and orange flag, or at least a radio call to rectify the situation, despite the two calls to Race Control by the Haas team."
Alonso was subsequently sanctioned with a 10-second stop/go penalty that was converted into a 30-second time penalty, a penalty that dropped the Spaniard to 15th in the revised and final standings.
Haas also protested Sergio Perez's Red Bull which had lost a front wing endplate early on in the race. But this was thrown out by the stewards.
Haas felt compelled to lodge its protests on Sunday in reaction to three instances this year in which its cars were deemed unsafe and shown the black-and-orange flag for a loose front wing endplate.
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner had heavily criticized the stewards' decisions on those three occasions, and therefore made a point of protesting Alpine and Red Bull in Austin.
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