Fernando Alonso backtracked on his claims of "incompetence" from the FIA stewards following a chat with President Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
The Spaniard and his Alpine team were livid after the Miami Grand Prix when two five-second penalties, one for contact with Pierre Gasly and another for going off track and gaining an advantage, dropped the double world champion outside the points.
While Alonso accepted the Gasly punishment, he was infuriated by the second penalty, which was awarded post-race, heavily criticising the events that took place.
"We believe that it was very unfair and it was just incompetence from the stewards," he said prior to the race weekend in Barcelona. "They were not very professional in Miami.
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"I missed one corner, I gave back the time on the lap, but obviously after you miss one corner, there is the sector time just after that corner, so the [purple mini-sector] colour [comes up].
"They took the decision without asking [for] any proof, we arrived after the race with all the proof of the time back that we gave and they were just packing up. They were not even in the room.
"We went there, we showed them all the data. So, they said ‘give us five minutes’, but then they found themselves with their hands tied, probably because they issued the penalty already and they didn’t know how to get back from that document.
"So, it was very bad and honestly… it’s already the past, but it is something that should not happen in Formula 1, with professionals and the standards that Formula 1 has right now."
This year, as part of changes made in the wake of Abu Dhabi last year, F1 has two new race directors, Neils Wittich and Eduardo Freitas.
And Alonso questioned if Wittich, who was the race director in Miami, was the right man for the job.
"You need to have some knowledge about racing before being a race director or trying to monitor a race and I don’t think that knowledge is in place at the moment," he claimed.
"I know there is a new race director here [for the Spanish GP]. I think Freitas has a lot more experience with WEC and with other categories at the top level and I think that will already improve things.
"But when you don’t have that knowledge of racing, it’s difficult to talk."
After the race in Spain, however, Alonso's tune suddenly changed.
“Reflecting from Miami, and Friday maybe I see it in a different way now,” he claimed.
“They did their job in Miami, we see things differently from the car and heat of the moment.
“We all worked together to improve the show, for example today, the fans saw a super race and we are all here to help the show.”
As it turned out, the FIA had done an unofficial investigation into Alonso for his comments, which potentially breached the governing body's International Sporting Code.
However, no action was taken after the 40-year-old had apologised during what he called a "nice and friendly" chat with "good friend" President Ben Sulayem.
“I have a lot of trust in Mohammed in how he’s handled FIA and all the changes he’s making and all the things he wants to improve,” Alonso added.
“I fully support what he’s doing, we were talking about Miami and generally the year how it’s been, as I said hearing from them, I can see their point and I see that I can do things differently and better.”
