Pierre Gasly no longer has a podium finish from the Monaco Grand Prix. McLaren and Red Bull won their appeals against the race result Friday, a decision that strips the Alpine driver of third place and drops him back to seventh, where he had originally been classified before Alpine's own successful appeal earlier this year.
The controversy stems from a 77-centimetre discrepancy between the officially measured distance of the pit lane and the real shortest route a driver could take. In June, a court of appeal had determined that Gasly had not actually exceeded the pit-lane speed limit when measured by that shorter route, and overturned two five-second penalties against him. Alpine had declined to serve those penalties during the race, believing they had been applied incorrectly.
McLaren then appealed on grounds of sporting fairness, since Oscar Piastri had lost two points as a result of the situation. Piastri was among several drivers who had served a five-second penalty. Red Bull also appealed in their own competitive interests.
According to BBC Sport, the court of appeal's decision rests on the conclusion that the parameters for measuring a speed limit cannot be changed in the middle of a grand prix weekend once competitors have been informed of them. The court ruled that "sporting fairness absolutely precludes the retrospective replacement" of an established calibration parameter "by a different geometric or measurement approach for the purpose of re-adjudicating an individual competitor's result."
With Gasly moved back to seventh, Red Bull's Isack Hadjar is returned to third and Piastri to fourth. Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad move up to fifth and sixth. Alpine called the outcome unjust, saying the team felt they had been "unjustly punished" by the decision.
The verdict does not fully resolve every effect of the series of pit-lane speeding penalties, which touched the results of several other drivers. Mercedes' George Russell was dropped out of the points for failing to correctly serve a pit-lane speeding penalty.
The ruling was announced during first practice at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. In that session, Charles Leclerc led Lewis Hamilton by 0.173 seconds, with Russell third. Liam Lawson, substituting again at Red Bull for the injured Hadjar, was fourth. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli, who leads Hamilton and Russell by 59 points, was fifth. Antonelli faces a grid penalty Sunday for taking a new power unit and will start from the back of the field, giving Ferrari an opportunity at their home circuit.
