The International Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of an appeal lodged by Red Bull and McLaren against the FIA Stewards’ decision to rescind two five-second time penalties against Pierre Gasly after June’s Monaco GP.
Gasly was penalised during the race for two instances of pit lane speeding, which demoted him to seventh after finishing third on track, promoting Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar to the final podium position.
Alpine petitioned the FIA Stewards after the race to review the penalties applied to Gasly in the final classification, arguing an irregularity with the measuring system used in the Monaco pit lane.
Upon review, the Stewards “determined that there was a significant and relevant new element that was unavailable to them at the time of their decisions”, resulting in the penalties against Gasly being rescinded.
McLaren, who was impacted by the same pit lane speeding penalties as Gasly, and Red Bull lodged an appeal to the ICA following the Stewards’ decision. On August 25, the ICA panel heard arguments from the respective teams, the FIA and FOM.
The Court deliberated over the FIA’s review procedures, the pit lane speed limits in Monaco, and the measurement system that tracks the average pit lane speed.
Alpine’s argument for its petition against the penalties was that the distance between “timing loops”, which measure the average time the car travels between certain points in the pit lane, was inaccurately calibrated for the Monaco pit lane.
The team’s review presented new measurements to the Stewards which differed from the distance adopted by FOM’s timekeeping for the race.
However, the ICA concluded that any issues with FOM’s measuring system would have equally impacted all teams during the race, and that retrospectively changing the measurement for one team that chose not to serve the penalty was not a fair application of the FIA’s review system.
The Court found that “the Competition had already been conducted under a common parameter that was repeatedly represented by FOM as correct.”
Selectively applying a different post-race parameter to Car 10 would mean that competitors who calibrated and competed against the common benchmark would be judged by one standard, while Car 10 would ultimately be judged by another.”
“That result is incompatible with the requirement of consistent and equal application under Article A9.4.3 of the F1 General Regulations.”
The Court’s final decision ruled in favour of Red Bull and McLaren’s appeals and ordered that the two five-second time penalties against Gasly be reimposed.
As a result, Isack Hadjar’s third place and podium have now been reinstated, almost three months after he was stripped of them.
Alpine released a statement after the decision, maintaining its stance that Pierre Gasly did not speed in the Monaco pit lane; however, it acknowledged the decision made by the ICA.
“We feel that we have been unjustly punished,” the team said.
“The team is firmly focused on track and remains in a close and very competitive Championship fight.”
The big winners from this decision are Racing Bulls, with the team’s drivers both moving up one position in the race classification and gaining an extra four championship points, with Alpine losing 11 points. This means the gap between the teams in the Constructors’ Championship increases from three points to 18.
