FIA Court of Appeal overturns Monaco stewards’ reversal

Formula 1’s 2026 Monaco Grand Prix results have been overturned again after the FIA International Court of Appeal determined the time penalties initially lodged against Pierre Gasly will stand. As a result, the Alpine driver lost his third place finish, while Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar regained that spot.

How the pit-lane saga unfolded

The controversial saga dates back to June, when Alpine filed an appeal over the pit lane speeding penalties Gasly received. The Frenchman was not the only driver dealt sanctions for such an infringement, but it was later determined the pit lane length had been measured incorrectly, leading to discrepancies with team pit lane speed limit calculations.

The FIA stewards subsequently determined Gasly had not exceeded the pit lane speed limit, based on the new information provided, and overturned his two time penalties. McLaren and Red Bull filed further appeals against that move, sending the case to the International Court of Appeal. Alpine and Racing Bulls were also part of the proceedings.

The finalizing point of the proceedings, which took place in a close-door hearing in Paris last week, was that the Monaco GP was held with a common parameter that all teams abided by throughout the weekend and made strategic decisions with the declared speed limit and pit lane distance measurement in mind.

“Selectively applying a different post-race parameter to car 10 (Gasly) would mean that competitors who calibrated and competed against the common benchmark would be judged by one standard,” the court said in its decision, which was published on Friday, “while car 10 would ultimately be judged by another.”

The court did not accept the explanation that what made Gasly’s decision different from the other competitors is that he did not serve his penalty during the Monaco GP, which allowed for a post-race review to take place.

“A tactical decision concerning when to serve a penalty cannot create for one competitor a different event-wide measurement parameter from that applied to the rest of the field,” it said.

Alpine reaction and championship impact

Alpine said in a statement that it is frustrated and disappointed by the court’s decision. It acknowledged the judges’ decision but disagrees, maintaining that Gasly didn’t exceed the pit lane speed limit.

With Gasly dropping from third to seventh, he lost nine points, which impacts Alpine’s constructors’ championship standing. Alpine remains sixth but now faces a 16-point gap to Racing Bulls, with Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad gaining positions with the decision reversal.

Monaco GP final Top 10

Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Isack Hadjar, Red Bull
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls
Arvid Lindblad, Racing Bulls
Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Alex Albon, Williams
Esteban Ocon, Haas
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin

Evidence in the hearing

Only one witness was called, Formula One Management’s chief engineering and innovation officer Arbi Karapetian. According to the court’s decision, Karapetian accepted that Gasly would have been below the pit lane speed limit of 37.3mph “only if the actual distance (Gasly) travelled had been less than approximately 2673 cm and 2670 cm respectively.”

Per the new decision, Karapetian “confirmed that he had produced no measurement or other evidence establishing that car 10 in fact travelled such distances.” This created uncertainty around the Gasly decision, which Alpine could not eliminate with absolute certainty.

The court questioned Alpine, and it revealed it used simulations and video imagery to create its “best estimate” of Gasly’s trajectory that day. But it could not guarantee “with any degree of high certainty” that the distance they calculated would be within centimeters of what Gasly actually drove in Monaco.

“The reconstruction therefore did not establish the actual distance travelled by car 10 in either passage with the precision necessary to resolve the difference between the relevant threshold distances.”

The court also noted how Gasly’s speed limit infractions were higher than the others. McLaren and Red Bull argued that the decision to rescind Gasly’s penalties was “a breach of the equality of treatment and of sporting fairness.”

It was also determined that, technically, the initial distance measurement of 2692cm wasn’t inaccurate but rather, FOM “concluded that, because of the non-perpendicular geometry of the loops, its experienced personnel should have selected a different line.”

The court decided “that once the official timekeeper has established and adopted the distance parameter used by the OTS for a competition, and competitors have been required to calibrate their cars and conduct the competition by reference to that common parameter, sporting fairness and equal treatment require that the parameter remains fixed for the competition.”

Essentially, decisions on pit lane speeding cannot be changed even if the pit lane measurement is found to be different post-race. The court ultimately felt that Gasly did exceed the speed limit twice and that the Monaco GP stewards erred in the subsequent decisions “by rescinding the penalties on the basis of the post-race distance reconstruction.”

Next steps

An Alpine source, speaking to The Athletic on condition of anonymity to protect relationships, confirmed the team is evaluating its options regarding the appeals court judgment: “Although the official FIA process is now closed, an escalation of the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport may offer an avenue for it to fight the judgment.”

Motorsport’s governing body has said in a statement it will now review “the methodology and operation of the current Formula 1 timing system and the related regulatory matters,” as well as the “other judicial procedures and operations including the right of review and the appeal processes.” But as far as F1’s race event stewarding process is concerned, the FIA “is fully supportive.”