The way rules are applied in F1 reminds me of soccer/football and 'injury time'. It's a way for the organizers to interject themselves, and bend the results. It's a shame, really. The sense of a fair application of rules and a level playing field is essential for any sport. It's a narrow path, small missteps turn into slippery slopes fast. In baseball, the umpire has to call a hundreds of balls and strikes over the course of a game. Sometimes, a pitcher will throw a strike that gets called a ball, and everybody knows the ump made a bad call. A few pitches later, a borderline ball will get called a strike, just to even things up. People accept a little bit of that, it's almost an attempt at fairness when done correctly. More that a little though, and the game is wrecked completely,.
I think the FIA finds it a lot easier to stick to the 'letter of the law' when handing out penalties to smaller teams. For the record, in this case I don't think Bottas jumped in a technical sense, he just timed it right, and the telemetry reflected that. Fortuitous was the word used, and I think it's correct. Sometimes people just get lucky. Has anyone looked at the start Alonso made for comparison, or any other starts (especially those not from the front row or two, so maybe less obvious) that have been exceptionally quick? I'd love to see several back to back, to see if there are other similar examples.