Alpine request FIA review of Monaco GP pit lane speeding penalties as Pierre Gasly left ‘heartbroken’ after losing podium | F1 News

Alpine have requested a right of review from the FIA for penalties applied for pit lane speeding during the Monaco Grand Prix after their driver Pierre Gasly was demoted from a podium finish.

Gasly was among an unusually large number of drivers to be penalised for exceeding the 60 kilometre per hour pit lane speed limit in Monaco, with two separate infringements for the same offence by the Frenchman resulting in a pair of five-second penalties that dropped him from third at the chequered flag to seventh.

Gasly was among several drivers to question the cause of the penalties after the race, saying he was “heartbroken” and urging the FIA to investigate the situation.

Shortly after the race, a statement released by Alpine said: “After the result of today’s Monaco Grand Prix, BWT Alpine Formula One Team can confirm it has requested a Right of Review from the FIA following the penalties applied for pit lane speeding.”

Alpine will be required to present the FIA with new evidence relevant to the sanction which was unavailable at the time of the stewards’ decision, if they are to earn a further hearing.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after his demotion, Gasly said: “Right now honestly I’m just heartbroken. I don’t have the words. I have too much emotions to process. I just can’t get my head around what happened. It just doesn’t sound fair.

“Triple checking with the team they set the right speed in the car. On both occasions, I’ve put the pit limiter way before the line.

“We’re all working so hard for these moments. 10 years I do this, 10 years I’ve tried to grab every opportunity, I have five podiums, which is nothing in my career. And we pass the road in third position in front of all the French people and it gets taken away from us. Right now, I just don’t know what to say.

“I hope they can have a look into it and just make the right decisions. As I say it from our side, I know I haven’t done anything wrong and I was 200 per cent sure I was before the line. The team set the right speed from what they said, and hopefully they can investigate it.

“But it won’t give me that moment. I’ve just been watching the podium and I definitely feel I should have been up there. The team will obviously fight it. It’s nine points that we’re losing, a podium. I have no idea.”

Russell: Clearly a problem with pit-lane software

Gasly’s assessment that a podium had been stolen away from him failed to take into account that Mercedes’ George Russell, who had been running ahead of him, also had his race ruined by the same penalty.

Despite having been penalised for speeding during his first pit stop, Russell had been on course to finish fourth before a late Safety Car caused by Lance Stroll crashing set off a disastrous chain of events for the Brit.

Mercedes brought Russell in under the Safety Car but instead of observing the rules by not touching his car for the first five seconds, his mechanics immediately started changing the tyres, which incurred the Brit an even more severe drive-through penalty that had to be served within three laps of its issuing.

That meant that after the standing restart in the closing stages, Russell had to come into the pits and dropped out of the points, continuing a terrible run that has seen him drop 68 points behind his team-mate Kimi Antonelli at the top of the standings.

Like Gasly, Russell appeared to question the FIA’s pit-lane technology.

He told Sky Sports F1: “Firstly, I’m not too sure why we got a penalty because I was on the pit limiter before the line. I released it after the line. But clearly there’s a problem in the software and many drivers got penalties.

“Ok, five seconds, not ideal but not the end of the world. And then in the pit stop, just major confusion, and getting a drive-through (penalty) – the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. So, P3 down to P14.”

During the red flag stoppage that followed Charles Leclerc crashing his Ferrari out of the race at the initial Safety Car restart, Russell visited the stewards to urge them to consider a less harsh punishment.

Russell explained: “I just asked, ‘can we review it afterwards?’ Because I said, ‘if I serve the drive-through now, the race is done.’

“And I was willing to serve the five-second penalty on the following lap. I had a 20-second gap behind me to Gasly. I probably gained a tenth of a second through the pit lane with that software glitch, and ended up losing 12 positions because of it.

“(They said) the rules are the rules, if you don’t serve the penalty, it’s a drive through.

“I don’t really know what to say. It’s two races in a row – could have won the race last week, could have maybe been P3-P4 today, it’s 40 points down the drain for things outside of my control.”

Hamilton: I wasn’t above the speed limit

Lewis Hamilton insisted he wasn’t above the speed limit despite being another driver to be penalised for the offence.

Hamilton’s penalty looked set to cost him second to his team-mate Charles Leclerc but Ferrari’s decision to pit both their cars at the same time – and allow Hamilton to serve his penalty – under the safety car meant the seven-time world champion stayed in front.

Leclerc, frustrated by his team’s decision, then crashed at the rolling restart, leaving Hamilton to take an ultimately comfortable second.

Reflecting on his penalty, Hamilton said: “I wasn’t speeding. I think it’s just the way the pit lane is.

“I’ve done this pit lane for years. It’s not like I came in and didn’t press a button or something like that. Pit lane limiter is on immediately and I think it’s just the line that you take, which is the same line we’ve all taken for years, where you come in, you kind of cut part of the white line.

“Head down, went out and I was shocked to hear that I was speeding because I wasn’t actually above the speed [limit].

“I think it’s the distance and something that we really need to look into because I heard lots of people got that today and they probably weren’t really speeding.

“Having to do a stop and wait for five, 10 seconds, whatever people got, it destroys you on a track so short as well, as your chances. I was thankful it didn’t impede me too much.”

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