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Alfa's appeal against German GP penalties to be heard in September

The Alfa Romeo Formula 1 team's appeal against the penalties it received after the German Grand Prix will be heard in Paris on September 24

The hearing will take place at the International Court of Appeal on the Tuesday between the Singapore and Russian Grands Prix.

Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi finished seventh and eighth on the road at Hockenheim, but both were given 30-second penalties for clutch offences at the start, dropping them out of the points.

In theory, the penalties applied in Hockenheim cannot be appealed, so the court's first job will be to decide whether the appeal is admissible before the case can be considered.

The risk Alfa has taken is that if the court believes the appeal was frivolous it has the option to increase the original penalty.

However, Alfa believes it will be able to present a strong argument.

"We've been penalised after the race, and we went for an appeal, which is the normal procedure if you are [penalised] and you think you have some arguments to win, otherwise you wouldn't do it," said Alfa sporting director Beat Zehnder.

"It's an ongoing process, I can't give you any more information. Everything will be disclosed on September 24th, when the hearing takes place in Paris."

Raikkonen denied he had made a particularly strong getaway in Germany, despite bursting from fifth on the grid to third by the first corner.

"It was a pretty normal start," he said, when asked by Autosport about his start.

"It only made it look quite good because the Red Bulls [which started second and fourth] made bad starts.

"If you ask them they will tell you that they made a pretty shitty start themselves.

"Mercedes and us were similar, so it just looked a bit better. That's honestly nothing to do with all these things."

Asked if the team was confident in the appeal, he added: "I don't know, honestly. I know that the appeal has been done, but I don't know when we'll hear and it's as simple as that."

Claire Williams, whose team scored its first point of 2019 through Robert Kubica when the Alfa Romeo penalties were applied, said Williams should not feel "ecstatic" about getting off the mark.

"With the number of points we've scored in our history for us to get excited about one point would be slightly erroneous," she said.

"Everybody at Williams has been working so hard this year, it has been another brutal season for us.

"So I suppose to get any kind of reward, we should take and we should accept that, even though Alfa have submitted their appeal against that. So we're going to have to wait and see [if that stands].

"One point for me, as a Williams, I can't personally be happy with that, and I don't think our team is necessarily ecstatic about it."

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