Monaco Grand Prix: Pierre Gasly takes third after Alpine appeals penalty

Pierre Gasly returned to third place at the Monaco Grand Prix after the Alpine team successfully appealed a pit-lane speeding penalty.

The Frenchman was relegated to seventh place after the race with a 5 second penalty for going 0.1 km/h over the pit lane speed.

He was one of five drivers to receive this penalty during the race, an unusually high number.

A ‘right of review’ hearing requested by Alpine found that cars could legally drive on pit roads for shorter distances than the authorities used in their calculations.

The stewards accepted Alpine’s argument that Gasly did not exceed the 60km/h limit as evidenced.

The decision hurt Mercedes driver George Russell, who was given a driving penalty for pit-line speeding, which dropped him from third to 13th on the season.

Rousseau’s Mercedes team, as well as the rest of the drivers who were penalized, did not protest the decision, even though they thought their drivers were not over the limit.

Ghazli committed two ‘crimes’. In addition to Russell, the other drivers were McLaren’s Oscar Piastre, Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Gasly’s teammate Franco Colapinto.

Hamilton’s penalty did not affect second place as Ferrari was able to use track position in a non-penalty manner during the safety-car period.

Piastre, who was moved up to 5th place by Gasli, lost three places due to the penalty.

As stated in the right of appeal published by the stewards, when the third arrived, they questioned the number of speeding penalties.

“Race Control immediately went back to the stewards to request the official timers and was told there was no problem and the information was correct,” the statement said.

The pit-lane speed limit is measured using a series of clock cycles and the time it takes to travel a certain distance on the pit lane.

According to the report, this year’s changes in the pit road, the shortest path between the loops was 77 centimeters less than the distance used to calculate the limit.

Five of the six offenses were committed by cars traveling 0.1 km/h over the limit. Another is 0.4 km per hour.

As a result, the stewards decided that Gasly had not exceeded the pit-lane speed limit.

More to follow.