Teams are questioning the integrity of the sport after Pierre Gasly’s third-place finish was returned to him after the race. The McLaren and Red Bull Racing Formula 1 teams have both now formally lodged appeals against the outcome of the stewards' decision that cancelled Pierre Gasly’s Monaco Grand Prix pit speeding penalties and returned third place to the Alpine driver. But the saga is not just about the final positions in the Monaco race, and the points lost by the two teams after the results were changed; it has much wider implications concerning the way the sport is run, which is now under close scrutiny.
In confirming that the team is pushing ahead with the appeal, McLaren took the unusual step of detailing the reasons behind its action, noting that “while we fully respect the FIA’s judicial processes and the role of the stewards, we believe this case raises important questions concerning sporting fairness, regulatory consistency and the integrity of competition.”
View Price on AmazonTo recap: the story began on Monaco Friday, when four drivers were hit with speeding offenses for exceeding the mandated 37 mph in the pits—namely George Russell (37.1), Kimi Antonelli (37), Fernando Alonso (37.2) and Alex Albon (37.1). Pit speeding is not unusual in practice, usually because drivers make mistake and push the limiter button too late or a car setting is wrong. They're also meaningless, bringing fines of as little as $110. However, the fact that all the offenses were so marginal suggested to the teams that the measuring system—controlled by loops in the pit lane—might be a little off-kilter, possibly because of the curves at pit entry and exit. While there was some discussion with the FIA, the teams were told the measuring system—which, like all official timing, is overseen by the F1 organization and not the FIA itself—was accurate.
Teams have traditionally been obliged to accept the official speeds, and if any offset emerges during practice, they have to adjust to it for the race, when a five-second penalty is the norm. They can do that by tweaking the software to a lower figure to allow more margin—for example, setting the “cruise control” limiter to 36.5 mph, rather than the 36.95 mph they might usually run—and by telling the drivers to not cut across the white lines at pit entry or exit and follow a trajectory that trims the distance and impacts the speed.
Despite such precautions in the race, five drivers from four teams were reported for speeding, one of them twice. Five of the offenses for Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Franco Colapinto, Oscar Piastri, and Gasly were at a marginal 37.1 mph, while Gasly had a second at 37.4 mph. All drivers took the standard five-second hit in subsequent pit stops—except Gasly, who didn’t pit again. He thus had 10 seconds added to his final result, and having crossed the line in P3, he dropped four spots.
Most teams thought that was the end of it, because normally, such penalties cannot be appealed—and after all, four drivers had taken theirs within the race, and those offenses were now history. Alpine, however, surprised the field by submitting a right-of-review request to the stewards concerning Gasly. That was heard four days later in a virtual gathering of the original stewards, whose first task was to decide if there was new evidence that would trigger a review of their decision.
By then, something remarkable had happened; while Alpine’s original case was based mainly on the data from the car, genuine fresh evidence had emerged in the form of an admission from F1 that there had been a small error in measuring the distance between one of the pit lane loops, which could account for Gasly’s speed figures. The stewards took that on board as new evidence, and—after some deliberation—cancelled the Gasly penalties, while acknowledging that nothing could be done for those who had taken their penalties in the race. The stewards also pointed out that others had not followed up with a request.
Source: roadandtrack.com
