Alpine has lodged a counter-protest against the timing of the original protest from Haas that resulted in Fernando Alonso being penalized after the United States Grand Prix.

Haas was unhappy that both Alonso and Sergio Perez were allowed to continue racing with loose bodywork on their cars, with Perez losing a front wing endplate five laps after damaging it. In Alpine’s case, Alonso had a damaged wing mirror after a collision with Lance Stroll, and the part fell off on the run to Turn 12 while the Spaniard was fighting with Kevin Magnussen over 20 laps later.

The stewards agreed with Haas’s claim that the Alpine was in an unsafe condition and should have been spoken to by race control, handing out a 10-second stop/go penalty that is converted into 30 seconds of race time that demotes Alonso from P7 to P15. However, Alpine believes the Haas submission came too late, and also criticized the decision to penalize the team for what it believes was an FIA error.

“BWT Alpine F1 Team is disappointed to receive a post-race time penalty for Car No.14 from the United States Grand Prix, which unfortunately means Fernando moves to outside the points-paying positions,” an Alpine statement read.

“The team acted fairly and deemed the car remained structurally safe as a result of Fernando’s incident with Lance Stroll on lap 22 of the race with the right-side rear view wing mirror detaching from the chassis as a result of accident damage caused by Stroll.

“The FIA has the right to black and orange flag a car during the race if they consider it unsafe and, on this occasion, they assessed the car and decided not to action the flag. Moreover, after the race, the FIA technical delegate considered the car legal.

“The team also believes due to the protest being lodged 24 minutes past the specified deadline, it should not have been accepted and therefore the penalty should be considered as invalid.

“As a result of this point, the team has protested the admissibility of the original Haas F1 Team protest.”