Five days on the the Monaco Grand Prix, the result of the race changed on Friday when the stewards confirmed that Alpine had won their Right of Review case against the penalties given to Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman finished third on the road and was demoted to seventh when his second, unserved five-second penalty was applied, but that has now been scrubbed and his podium finish reinstated.
Gasly was one of a handful of drivers penalised for speeding in the pit lane during the race. His team-mate Franco Colapinto also copped five seconds, while Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri and George Russell were also given the same punishment. It proved to be especially consequential for the latter, who did not serve his five seconds correctly and that led to a drive-through penalty which ended his chances of scoring points.
It was clear at the time that there was some sort of issue in the pit lane with multiple drivers after the race suggesting the system which times the cars entering the pits and calculates their speed may have been flawed. And that has now been confirmed to be true, though a quirk of the regulations means Alpine and Gasly are the only ones who can have their penalties overturned.
Other teams can’t appeal their penalties
Alpine were swift to request a Right of Review with the FIA, confirming that they had done so not long after the conclusion of the race. But they were the only team to exercise their right. Mercedes did not try to have Russell’s initial penalty overturned, nor did Ferrari with Hamilton or McLaren with Piastri.
And that is one of the two reasons why Alpine’ successful Right of Review will not serve as a precedent for other teams to try their luck. None of the others submitted their Right of Review in time. Plus, as the Russell, Hamilton and Piastri time penalties were all served in the Grand Prix, there is no way for them to be undone.
The stewards addressed this situation as it confirmed Alpine’s success. In the official decision document, they wrote: “Other cars were penalised, some served their penalty and this regrettably, impacted their race strategies and therefore their race result. There will undoubtedly remain questions as to whether those breaches were genuine. There is no regulation that gives the stewards the power to ‘undo’ a served penalty. In any case, it is impossible to imagine how such power could be applied.”
F1 teams ‘furious’ over decision
Interestingly, representatives of multiple other teams had attended Thursday’s hearing and argued that Alpine’s request should not be successful. That includes Red Bull, whose head of sporting matters Stephen Knowles argued that teams knew the pit lane speed calculations were “imperfect”, McLaren sporting director Will Courtenay who backed up that point and VCARB sporting director Marco Perroni who questioned if the trundle wheel Alpine used to measure the pit lane themselves after the race could be considered an accurate enough tool.
The stewards found in favour of Alpine despite those protests, much to the annoyance of those teams who have all lost points as a result. Isack Hadjar has been stripped of his first podium as a Red Bull driver, while Piastri drops to fifth and Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad slip to sixth and seventh in the final Monaco GP classification as a result of Gasly’s third place being restored.
McLaren are said to be considering whether they should appeal the stewards’ decision to overturn Gasly’s penalties. And a high-level source within Mercedes has told Express Sport that the team is “absolutely furious” with the situation, despite them not having lost any points because of Gasly being put back into the podium positions.