McLaren and Red Bull take Gasly’s Monaco penalty case to FIA appeal court

McLaren and Red Bull challenge Gasly decision

McLaren and Red Bull will present their cases to the FIA International Court of Appeal in Paris after challenging the decision to cancel Pierre Gasly’s Monaco Grand Prix penalties and restore his podium finish.

Both teams have appealed decisions 1 and 2 of document 99 from the Monaco Grand Prix — the rulings that removed Gasly’s two five-second penalties. The case centres on whether the stewards were right to reconsider the sanctions after Alpine successfully invoked its right of review.

How Gasly’s penalties were overturned

That decision promoted Isack Hadjar to the podium, while Piastri, Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad also gained one position. The result briefly placed Gasly’s first podium of the season out of reach.

Alpine then requested a right of review. The subsequent investigation found that the official timekeepers had marked the pit-lane distance incorrectly. The 60kph average speed had been calculated using distance over time rather than from a single measurement point at pit entry or pit exit.

The stewards judged that the discovery met the required threshold of being “significant, relevant and new”, because the incorrect distance information had not been available when the original penalties were issued. After reconsidering the case, they expunged both sanctions and reinstated Gasly in third place.

The appeal’s central complication

Piastri had already served his five-second penalty during the race. Without that sanction, he would have finished third on the road ahead of Gasly. Russell, meanwhile, received a drive-through penalty after failing to serve his five-second penalty correctly and finished 12th.

The distinction is central: McLaren and Mercedes could not appeal their drivers’ penalties because they had already been served. The rulebook contains no mechanism for cancelling the effects of a penalty after it has been served. Gasly’s case was different because neither sanction had been served; Alpine had intended to add the 10 seconds to his race time instead.

Toto Wolff said Mercedes was “on the phone to the lawyers” after Gasly’s penalty was rescinded, but the team ultimately took no further action. McLaren and Red Bull have now chosen to pursue the matter. For additional context on the Red Bull-linked names involved, see Liam Lawson’s strong Red Bull cameo.