- Alpine wins Pierre Gasly’s Monaco podium back after FIA confirms timing error.
- Red Bull and McLaren have filed appeals, putting the result in doubt again.
- Mercedes faces the steepest climb, with a served penalty blocking its review.
Alpine driver Pierre Gasly has been reinstated to third place at the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix after the FIA confirmed a timing measurement error had wrongly triggered multiple pit lane speeding penalties.
The decision has satisfied one team but inflamed several others, and the final race result remains unresolved.
Gasly finished third on the road but was dropped to seventh after two five-second time penalties were added to his finishing time post-race.
He had not pitted again after the infractions, so the penalties were never served on track. That one detail proved critical to everything that followed.
Formula One Management, the sport’s official timekeeper, confirmed at a hearing in Barcelona on Thursday that it had used an incorrect distance between two timing loops at Monaco’s pit entry.
The recorded figure was 26.92 metres. Post-event scans placed the real distance at 26.15 metres, a gap of 77 centimetres.
Because speed is calculated by dividing distance by time, the inflated figure pushed the recorded speeds of every car through that zone above what they actually were. According to Auto Motor und Sport, all six speeding violations from the race came from this single faulty sector.
On Friday morning in Barcelona, stewards rescinded both of Gasly’s penalties and restored his podium.
A 77-centimetre mistake that touched the whole grid
Gasly was not alone. George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto were all caught by the same zone.
Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen noted that six infractions from three teams in a single race was a volume you would normally expect across an entire season.
Gasly had driven from ninth on the grid to third through a chaotic, red-flagged race. The margins that triggered his penalties, 0.1 km/h and 0.4 km/h over the limit, felt wrong to the team immediately.
Alpine’s own data showed Gasly had activated his speed limiter before entering the pits. The team measured the pit lane entry with a trundle wheel that same Sunday evening and filed a Right of Review petition after finding an anomaly.
After the ruling, Gasly told Sky Sports F1 he was “extremely happy for the whole team.” But he was honest about what the reinstatement could not return.
“It won’t give me back what I lost,” he said. “Being on the podium with the prince, celebrating with the guys. These moments are what makes a career so special.”
Why rivals are furious and what Red Bull’s appeal really means
Reinstating Gasly reshuffled the order for several drivers. Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, who had believed he was claiming his first podium for the team, was pushed back to fourth. Piastri dropped from fourth to fifth. The Racing Bulls pair of Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad each fell one place.
Both Red Bull and McLaren filed their intention to appeal to the FIA’s International Court of Appeal, with the deadline falling on 16 June.
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies told GPblog the team was acting “for the goodness of the sport.” His argument went deeper than points. “We have been working with that measurement system for a very high number of years,” he said.
“It was the same as the day before, the same as on Friday, the same as the previous years, and we have all adapted to it.” If 17 or 18 cars stayed within the limit, his logic ran, those who tripped the sensors carried some responsibility.
Red Bull also refused to hand the podium trophy to Alpine, according to The Race. It was a small but pointed signal that the team considered nothing settled.
Piastri, who had served his own penalty during the race at his next pit stop, framed the core injustice clearly when speaking to Sky Sports F1.
“When you have five or six cars penalised for that, and you change one penalty, and you don’t change any of the others,” he said, “it creates a tough situation for everybody.”
Williams boss James Vowles, unaffected by the result changes, offered the most candid outside view. “I’m surprised we have the reinstatement, being frank about it,” he said.
When asked about the McLaren and Red Bull appeals, he was unequivocal: “For good reason. I would support them in that.”
The can of worms nobody can close
Mercedes carries the most complicated grievance. Russell was running third when he received a speeding penalty.
A miscommunication in the garage then led the team to serve it incorrectly, which triggered a drive-through that left him classified 12th. Without the original infraction, none of it would have happened.
Team principal Toto Wolff confirmed to Sky Sports F1 that Mercedes had submitted its own Right of Review. But he was candid about the difficulty. “I have to be honest, I’m not sure this is a realistic outcome because you open up a can of worms,” he said. “But we have to do it for George’s benefit.”
The regulations create a hard wall here. A penalty served on track cannot be undone retrospectively. Russell completed his drive-through during the race.
Gasly’s penalties existed only as figures added to his time afterwards. That difference explains why Alpine succeeded and why Mercedes faces a much steeper path.
Nielsen, for his part, acknowledged the uncomfortable position the ruling left others in. “I guess we’ll never know whether they were actually speeding in the pit lane or not,” he said of the other penalised drivers.
“I’d be angry in their shoes.” The same error affected everyone. Only one team had a legal route to fix it.
With appeals pending and Mercedes pursuing its own review, the Monaco result could yet change again.
