Mercedes weighs up legal options over Gasly Monaco F1 penalty precedent

Toto Wolff says Mercedes is “looking what it can do” for George Russell after FIA stewards overturned Pierre Gasly’s Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix penalty.

Gasly was one of five drivers penalised for pitlane speeding, with it emerging after the race that there had been an error with the measurement system.

On Sunday night, Gasly’s Alpine team launched a right of review procedure against his double five-second penalty, which dropped him from third to seventh after the flag. After hearings over the Barcelona race weekend, the FIA stewards deemed Gasly hadn’t been guilty of speeding and took the unprecedented decision to rescind his penalties and reinstate the Frenchman in third.

Alpine was the only competitor to launch a right of review, and the stewards detailed that because the other drivers involved had all served their five-second penalties during the race, there was no regulatory framework to undo them.

The penalty errors were particularly costly for Mercedes driver Russell, as he was later slapped with a drive-through penalty for failing to serve his initial five-second hit. It dumped the Briton out of the top 10 and increased his title deficit to team-mate Kimi Antonelli to 68 points, when he was otherwise in podium contention.

When asked for his view on Russell’s costly penalty and Gasly being reinstated, Mercedes team boss Wolff said his legal team is investigating if there’s anything it can do to help Russell. An actual legal challenge appears extremely unlikely, but given the unprecedented nature of the stewards’ decision the team is at least exploring any options at its disposal.

“I [was just] on the phone with our lawyers to look at what we can do for George,” Wolff said.

“We are assessing as we speak what the Gasly situation does for George. We wouldn’t appeal the Gasly result, certainly, but we would like the FIA to look at what could be the remedies for George’s race.

“I think we are having some timing limitations and some other legal constraints, but definitely something we have a reason to be annoyed.”

Alongside the potentially disastrous title implications for Russell, another source of annoyance is that a potential issue with the pitlane timing system had already emerged before the race but wasn’t fully discovered until after the race. That’s when FOM timekeepers found that the first timing loop in pit entry was shorter than originally calibrated, causing the system to overestimate car speeds.

Wolff hopes the parties involved can learn from the Monaco situation to avoid a repeat in the future, with timekeeper provider FOM vowing to review its procedures for Monte Carlo’s peculiar pitlane.

“It was a very unfortunate situation, and clearly we can all learn from that,” the Austrian added. “That wasn’t something that just came up on Sunday, that suddenly 10 cars that were in breach of pitlane speeding. It’s something that was flagged before. I wish we could have had those conversations before the race on Sunday.”

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Pierre Gasly, Alpine

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

It is understood there are no real avenues Mercedes can pursue to address Monaco specifically, as Russell’s served time penalty cannot be unwound at this stage. The only thing it could have done is appeal against the right of review outcome, which Wolff has already ruled out and which would not have had any effect on Russell’s result.

McLaren and Red Bull did notify the FIA of their intention to appeal, a move which can be made up to one hour after the stewards’ verdict and starts a 96-hour window for both teams to study the verdict, the FIA rulebook and decide if they want to proceed with an actual appeal.

Both teams were affected by Gasly’s reinstatement, with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar losing his podium and dropping to fourth, while McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was demoted from fourth to fifth.

We want to hear from you!

– The Autosport.com Team