Alpine driver Pierre Gasly was reinstated to the Monaco Grand Prix podium on Friday after Formula One stewards ruled in favour of his Renault-owned team and rescinded penalties for pitlane speeding after recognising a timekeeping error.
The Frenchman had finished third on the track but dropped to seventh when the two five-second penalties were applied after last Sunday’s race finish.
Formula One, responsible for the timekeeping, admitted making a mistake with its measurements.
Alpine, which had sought a right of review, welcomed the decision in a statement and thanked Formula One Management and the governing FIA for their transparency and cooperation.
Gasly had said on Sunday that he was heartbroken by the penalties and “to have a lifelong dream of a Monaco podium taken away from me for reasons which I just cannot comprehend”.
The decision means Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, who had inherited third place and celebrated on the podium with Mercedes’ winner Kimi Antonelli and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, drops back to fourth.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri moves down to fifth, with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson sixth and teammate Arvid Lindblad seventh.
The decision will taste particularly bitter for others who suffered similar time penalties for pitlane speeding but did not seek a review, and for luckless Mercedes driver George Russell, who was handed a drive-through penalty that left him out of the points.
Russell told reporters on Thursday that he had pleaded for his penalty to be added post-race and said it would be a ‘kick in the balls’ if Gasly had his penalties overturned.
“The stewards note that in relation to other cars that were penalised, some served their penalty and this, regrettably, impacted their race strategies and therefore their race result,” the officials said in a statement.
“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. Notably, no other party petitioned for a Right of Review within the allowable time frame.”
(Reuters)
