F1 measured its own pit lane wrong, and only gasly gets his race back
the stewards cancelled gasly's two monaco speeding penalties because the timing zone was 77cm out, and the other four drivers it caught get nothing.
five days after the monaco grand prix, pierre gasly has finished third in it.
quick recap. gasly crossed the line third on sunday, then dropped to seventh because of two 5-second penalties for speeding in the pit lane. four other drivers got the same penalty in the same race: lewis hamilton, george russell, oscar piastri and gasly’s teammate franco colapinto. i said in the race report that i had questions.
today the stewards answered them. alpine asked for a right of review (the only way to challenge a time penalty), and F1’s official timekeeper admitted that the first speed zone after the pit entry had been set up wrong. pit lane speed is worked out from the time a car takes between two timing loops and the distance between them. the timekeeper used 2,692cm. a laser scan found the shortest line a car can take is 2,615cm. that’s 77cm of pit lane that doesn’t exist.
redo the maths with the right number and gasly’s 60.1 and 60.4 km/h become 58.7 and 58.8. the limit in monaco is 60. he was never speeding. both penalties are gone, he’s back in third, alpine has its first podium since 2024, and isack hadjar’s podium is now a fourth place. it’s also nine more points for alpine, which moves to 50.
good for gasly. now the part that makes me want to throw something.
the decision says every speeding penalty in that race came from the same zone. the other four drivers were all clocked at 60.1 km/h. gasly’s 60.1 turned out to be 58.7, so you can guess what theirs really were. but the stewards say they can’t help anyone who already served the penalty during the race: “there is no regulation that gives the stewards the power to ‘undo’ a served penalty.”
so hamilton and piastri keep a penalty for something that almost certainly didn’t happen. russell’s is worse. his 5 seconds wasn’t served properly, which became a drive-through, which turned a points finish into P12. he’s 68 points behind kimi antonelli in the championship and he just lost a result to a tape measure.
i’ve been saying since mexico last year that the FIA needs consistent decision-making. the measurement was F1’s mistake, but the mess afterwards belongs to the rulebook. one error produced six penalties, and only gasly’s two have been fixed, because alpine was the only team that petitioned in time. a rule that says you can’t undo a served penalty makes sense on a normal sunday. it makes none when the speed trap itself was wrong.
and it isn’t over. mclaren and red bull have both told the FIA they intend to appeal, since piastri and hadjar are the ones who lose places.
meanwhile there’s a race this weekend. practice for the barcelona-catalunya grand prix started today, and antonelli arrives with five wins in a row and a 66-point lead over hamilton. my prediction: kimi makes it six, and every driver crawls down the pit lane on sunday just in case. see you after the race.