Monaco F1 penalties under review after Alpine appeal

Two-time penalties for pitlane speeding that cost Pierre Gasly a Monaco Grand Prix podium last weekend were under review on ​Thursday after it emerged Formula One had made a mistake with its measurements.

Stewards said in a statement at the ‌Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix that a petition for review by the Frenchman's Renault-owned Alpine team was admissible in both cases and could proceed to a second hearing.

They accepted also that there was a significant and new element that was previously unavailable to the stewards at the time of the decisions last Sunday.
Alpine argued ​in their written submission that both the governing FIA and Formula One Management (FOM), but not the stewards, knew before the ​race that there was an issue with the timing loops in the pit lane.

SPEED MEASUREMENT INACCURATE AND OVERESTIMATED

The ⁠statement said Alpine also had data showing that Gasly activated the car's speed limiter before entering the pit lane and had stayed ​within the limit.
The submission stated that "FOM, as Official Timekeeping Supplier to the Competition, provided evidence that the distance used in calculating the F1 ​Official Timing (and hence the pit lane speed) was inaccurate and overestimated the speed of Car 10 (Gasly)".

Stewards said confirmation of the inaccurate distance measurement was provided by FOM only on the Wednesday after the race.

They noted also that they had expressed concern during the race after three initial pitlane speeding breaches and asked race ​control if there was any issue with the system.

"Race control reported back that it raised the matter with the official timekeeper and ​was reassured that there were no issues," they said.

Gasly finished third on the road in Monaco, effectively a home race for the Frenchman and his team, ‌but ⁠was demoted to seventh after two five-second penalties were applied. He had been recorded doing 60.1 and 60.4 kph when the limit was 60 kph.

Gasly said afterwards that he was "absolutely 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 review opened the possibility of reinstatement, at the expense of Red Bull's Isack Hadjar, although that ​could be problematic with other ​drivers also penalised for the ⁠same offence.

Apart from Alpine, eight of the 11 teams requested to attend the virtual hearing whose final decision remained pending.

"I think in the race it was reasonably obvious. I thought that there was something weird ​going on because maybe you have one or two cars in the same race and you ​usually get a ⁠penalty but not seven or eight or whatever it was," said McLaren's Oscar Piastri, who was also penalised.

"It's obviously impacted the result of the race in one way or another. I got a penalty and if I didn't have that penalty to serve I wouldn't have pitted again. They ⁠can't change ​the result now because it's also been happening before (Gasly's penalty)."

Mercedes's George Russell, who ​finished out of the points in a race won by teammate Kimi Antonelli, said he had pleaded with the FIA at the time to impose a post-race penalty on ​him rather than the drive-through he got which, once served, could never be undone.

-Reuters