Alpine executive Flavio Briatore has questioned the independence of a judge who sat on the FIA International Court of Appeal panel that reinstated Pierre Gasly’s pit-lane penalties, alleging the panel member had links to McLaren.
The court’s Friday ruling restored two five-second penalties originally issued to Gasly for speeding in the pit lane. The Alpine driver had crossed the finish line in third place, but the sanctions dropped him to seventh once they were added to his elapsed race time.
Alpine had initially succeeded with a right of review after it emerged that the official timekeeper had made an error when measuring the length of the pit lane. McLaren and Red Bull subsequently brought the matter before the International Court of Appeal. Isack Hadjar was promoted to third, stripped of the position, and then reinstated after Friday’s decision.
Speaking shortly after the verdict in the FIA Team Principal’s Press Conference, Briatore said Alpine accepted the result but objected to the conduct and background of one of the four judges.
“First, we accept the decision, but what is very strange is that of the four judges on the panel, one of the judges acts like a prosecutor,” Briatore told media, including RacingNews365.
He claimed the judge had appeared at a 2018 speech for McLaren Special Operations in Beverly Hills and said the panel member had a foundation, One Drop Foundation, to which McLaren had given a car. Briatore argued that those connections created an unacceptable conflict because McLaren was one of the teams involved in the case.
“One of the judges was linked to a team protesting us,” he said.
Briatore also rejected McLaren team principal Andrea Stella’s defence of the appeal on sporting-integrity grounds, insisting that the central issue was the judge’s independence rather than the rules applied to Gasly’s penalties.
“The panel should be completely independent, and you don't need somebody linked with some team, especially the team involved with us in this situation,” Briatore said.
He added that Alpine had not known about the alleged relationship before the hearing and said the judge had been “very nasty” and had acted as a prosecutor during proceedings. Briatore concluded that the team accepted the outcome but was considering what it could do next, while repeating its question: “Why was somebody involved with McLaren part of the panel in this case?”
Simone Scanu
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.
