With uncertainty until the end, first with a penalty and then with the rectification of the FIA, Fernando Alonso achieved his 100th podium in Formula 1 with third place signed at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Spaniard reached this round figure in his second race with the surprising Aston Martin.
The two-time world champion saw him get off the box momentarily in Jeddah after receiving a 10-second penalty for allegedly failing to comply with a previous five-second penalty. The FIA ??detected that a hydraulic jack touched the green car during the penalty pit stop, but later rectified the allegations of the British team, which presented seven videos of similar situations where the drivers were not fined.
“Aston Martin and Fernando deserve it,” acknowledged George Russell, fourth in Arabia, who was going to be the beneficiary of the sanction in Spanish, who replied with a funny photograph. Alonso is the sixth driver in the history of the ‘great circus’ to reach one hundred podiums, only surpassed by Raikkonen (103), Prost (106), Vettel (122), Schumacher (155) and Hamilton (191).
The first time that Alonso stepped on a podium in the highest category of motorsport was in 2003 in Malaysia with Renault, a team with which he won his two world titles (2005 and 2006) and with which he achieved 37 podiums in his first stage, from those that 15 were victories. He then signed for McLaren, where he had a great rivalry with Hamilton.
In the British team, where he ran in 2007, he again celebrated 12 times with champagne finishing in the top three. On four occasions he climbed to the top rung but was left with a bad taste in his mouth from letting his third World title slip away in the last race of the season. Raikkonen prevailed over the two McLarens.
Alonso returned to Renault in search of his third win, but the return to the French car was a failure and he only achieved four podiums and two wins. The one from Oviedo was once again a candidate for the title with Ferrari. After five seasons with the prancing horse, he had to settle for three runner-up finishes that resulted in 44 podiums and 11 wins.
After finishing his stage in the Italian team, the Spaniard did not get on the podium again until 2021. After hanging around in the middle of the grid with McLaren and after trying other motor disciplines, such as the Dakar and the Endurance World Championship, Alonso he hunted down a third-place finish with Alpine in Qatar. At 41 years old, Alonso has already finished twice in the top three this season and it seems that he will once again be a regular in the drawer twenty years after his first podium finish.
