Gasly reinstated to third in Monaco after FIA overturns penalties

Pierre Gasly’s Monaco podium vanished in the stewards’ office and came back the same way, after Alpine won a Right of Review that exposed a timing error in the pit lane. The FIA said new evidence showed Gasly had not exceeded Monaco’s 60 km/h limit, restoring him to third and reshaping the result behind him.

Gasly had started ninth in Monte Carlo and crossed the line third on the road, but two separate five-second penalties for pit-lane speeding dropped him to seventh in the official classification. ESPN reported that the alleged infringements were only 0.1 km/h and 0.4 km/h over the limit, a margin so small that the FIA later concluded Gasly had not actually broken the rule at all.

The key to the reversal was not a fresh argument about driving style, but a fresh look at the measurement itself. Alpine filed a Right of Review, and the FIA accepted it because the team presented new, significant evidence that had not been available when the original ruling was made. Formula One Management supplied evidence showing the first pit-lane timing zone had been measured incorrectly, with the distance used longer than the shortest route actually available after changes to the pit-entry layout.

That matters in a sport where penalties are often decided in fractions of a second and by systems that must hold up under intense pressure. Monaco was unusually contentious, with five drivers penalized for pit-lane speeding, including George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri and Franco Colapinto. The principality’s pit lane is policed at 60 km/h, well below the 80 km/h limit used at most other circuits, leaving little room for error and even less room for a mismeasured zone.

The corrected classification lifted Gasly back to third and pushed Isack Hadjar to fourth, Oscar Piastri to fifth, Liam Lawson to sixth and Arvid Lindblad to seventh. Alpine said it welcomed the FIA’s decision and thanked both the FIA and Formula One Management for their transparency and cooperation. The outcome underscored a basic test of trust in Formula 1 officiating: when the numbers are wrong, the result must be righted, even after the trophies have been handed out.