Monaco GP result could change days after race as Alpine review allowed | F1 | Sport

The result of last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix has been thrust into fresh doubt several days on after Alpine succeeded in the first stage of their Right of Review request. Shortly after the end of last Sunday’s Monte Carlo race, the team confirmed it had exercised its Right of Review in relation to two penalties handed to their driver Pierre Gasly during the Grand Prix.

Gasly was one of several drivers penalised during the race for speeding in the pit lane. The Frenchman was actually punished twice, both for speeding offences clocked at less than 0.5kph over the 60kph speed limit in the Monaco pit lane, though he was furious about it and adamant that he had turned on his speed limiter well before crossing the line denoting the start of the pit lane.

Gasly finished the race third on the road and thought he had scored a podium finish for Alpine. However, his second five-second penalty still had to be applied and that dropped him down to seventh in the final classification. He reacted angrily and said the situation was “unfair”, while his team exercised its Right of Review into the matter.

In order for that to proceed, the team needed to provide new and relevant evidence that was not available to the stewards at the time of the decision. That is a high bar which usually sees most Right of Review cases fail but, in this case, it has now been confirmed that Alpine have cleared it.

In this case, Alpine argued that, while the FIA and Formula One Management were aware before the race that there was an issue with the timing loops in the pit lane which detect the speed of cars coming through, the stewards themselves were not. As such, that fact is a new and relevant piece of evidence upon which they were not able to act during the Grand Prix.

Alpine also provided data proving that Gasly had activated his speed limiter before the pit entry, and also a witness statement from the Frenchman stating he had been warned about the issue by his engineers, and so had taken “a cautious approach” when entering the pit lane.

And, significantly, Formula One Management, as the official timekeepers of the sport, provided evidence that the distance between the timing loops used to calculate the speed of cars was not accurate and so overestimated the speed of Gasly’s car, and it seems several others, during the Grand Prix.

The matter will now proceed into a second hearing where Alpine will argue that the penalties given to Gasly should be overturned. If they are successful in doing so, then the result of the Monaco race may be changed – and it may also cause uproar among other teams who also received similar penalties.

As well as Gasly, the other drivers to suffer significant repercussions as a result of his speeding penalty was George Russell. He did not correctly serve his five-second penalty and was later slapped with a drive-through which resulted in him finishing outside the points. How that would be reconciled is, as it stands, anyone’s guess.