Fernando Alonso pokes fun at George Russell after taking back third place from Mercedes driver

The Aston Martin driver was originally penalised after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – robbing him of a podium – before an appeal resulted in the Spaniard being promoted back to third place

Fernando Alonso could not help but poke fun at George Russell on Twitter after his podium at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was reinstated.

The Aston Martin driver came home third in Jeddah on Sunday before he was hit with a 10-second time penalty shortly after the race concluding, demoting him down to fourth and seeing Russell promoted to the podium.

But Aston appealed the verdict and were successful due to ambiguity in the rulebook, meaning Alonso did ultimately secure a podium – his 100^th in Formula 1 – and Russell dropped back down to fourth.

And after Russell tweeted about picking up his first trophy of the season, Alonso replied on Monday with a picture of him looking upwards into a camera, accompanied with “Hola” and a “trophy” and “back” emoji.

It is Alonso’s second third-place finish in a row, after he finished on the podium in the opening race of the season in Bahrain.

Russell had insisted post-race that Alonso and Aston deserved a podium, believing the penalty was “harsh” and “too extreme” before it was reversed.

The Spaniard, who took the lead of the race as he overtook Sergio Perez down into turn one, had to serve a five-second time penalty for not being in the correct grid spot at the start of the grand prix.

Then, having lost first place to eventual race winner Perez, Alonso served the penalty at his first pit stop but upon review work started on his car milliseconds too early, with the rear jack raised too soon.

However, team principal Mike Krack reffered to “ambiguity” in the regulations regarding what constitutes “working” on the car and – on that basis – the stewards decided to reverse the 10-second penalty and thus Alonso was restored to third place.

Alonso had said post-race that he “didn’t care too much” about the penalty but did slam the FIA for how long it took them to make the decision.

“It doesn’t hurt too much,” Alonso said. “It’s more the FIA who fall short today.

“You cannot apply a penalty 35 laps after the pit stop. They had enough time to inform me about the penalty - if I knew I could have pushed for 11 seconds, so it’s not good for the fans.

“No one told me about this five seconds, there was no information at all, not even investigated. I don’t understand fully the second penalty. I care but I don’t care that much - I celebrated but I have three points less.”

A spokesman for the governing FIA said in the case of Alonso’s second penalty there were conflicting precedents for what constituted “working on the car”.

He said that would be discussed at a Sporting Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday and a clarification issued before the next race in Australia.