Alonso penalized, drops out of the points

Haas had protested decisions to allow the Spaniard and Red Bull's Sergio Perez, who finished fourth, to continue racing with loose bodywork.

Stewards at Austin's Circuit of the Americas rejected the protest against Red Bull but upheld the one against Renault-owned Alpine, dropping Alonso to 15th with a 30 seconds post-race penalty.

Haas had argued that Alonso's car was being driven in an unsafe condition after a collision because the right-hand mirror was moving around before it finally fell off, without harming anybody.

The U.S.-owned team made the point that they had been shown a black and orange flag, requiring a driver to pit due to mechanical problems or loose bodywork, on three occasions this season.

Technical chiefs for the governing FIA told stewards the car was unsafe to be driven with a flapping mirror and after it had fallen off.

"A car must be in a safe condition throughout a race, and in this case, Car 14 (Alonso) was not," stewards said in a statement. "This is a responsibility of the Alpine team."

However, after the penalty was imposed on Alonso, Alpine announced that they have decided to protest the penalty in a statement on social media.

"BWT Alpine F1 Team is disappointed to receive a post-race time penalty for Car #14 from today’s United States Grand Prix, which unfortunately means Fernando moves to outside the points-paying positions," the statement said.

"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," Alpine added.

"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 revealed.

"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," the statement concluded.

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Reporting by Alan Baldwin, Additional reporting by GrandPrix247

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