Oscar Piastri fears the fallout from Monaco’s pit lane penalty saga could encourage teams to ignore penalties during races and fight them after the chequered flag.
However, the first lesson that F1 needs to learn from the controversy – measure the pit lane.
Oscar Piastri fears Monaco penalty appeal precedent
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Almost three weeks on from the Monaco Grand Prix and the race result has yet to be rubberstamped as McLaren and Red Bull have appealed.
Although Pierre Gasly finished third on the road in Monaco, he was demoted to seventh after two five-second penalties for speeding in the pit lane were added to his race time.
Alpine lodged a Right to Review, which was successful as it emerged that Formula One Management, which is in charge of the sport’s timing, had miscalculated the distance in the entry zone timing loops of the pit lane.
Gasly’s penalties were rescinded, with the Frenchman regaining third place, the 15 points, and the trophy from Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar.
However, given that other drivers, including Piastri had served in-race penalties for speeding in the pit lane, Red Bull and McLaren both appealed the stewards’ decision.
It means that almost three weeks on from Monaco, the race result has yet to be rubberstamped.
For Piastri, the stewards have opened a can of worms with their decision to reinstate Gasly as aside from the obvious lesson of measure the pit lane, it has set an example for teams to deliberately avoid serving penalties to have the grounds to argue against it after the Grand Prix.
“I think the most obvious one [lesson] is make sure the pit lane is measured correctly,” he said ruefully during Thursday’s media day FIA press conference in Austria. “That’s a good starting point.
“I think what is difficult in that situation is Alpine questioned the penalty, I think everybody questioned the penalties. I’ve never seen a race like that, where there’s so many pit lane speeding penalties, and in my case specifically I knew I wasn’t speeding either.
“But the kind of approach is always well, you have the penalty, you can’t really argue with it in a lot of cases, which I think in 99% of things is a good thing and I think the risk that we have now is anytime a team or a driver feels that a penalty is potentially wrong or they have a chance of changing it, you go through this whole saga where we still don’t officially know the results of the race a month later, which I think is the biggest thing.
“If there’s something that can be corrected, then I can definitely see why it can be, but it also sets a bit of a tricky precedent because you could just end up with everybody not serving their penalties and then arguing about it for weeks after, which is not what anyone wants to see.
“So a difficult situation with two sides to it, I guess, or probably even more.”
The Australian had previously labelled the decision as “very, very murky”, with his “mind blown” that Alpine’s Right of Review was even entertained given the broader picture.
More on the Monaco GP fall-out
Monaco GP fallout escalates as McLaren and Red Bull launch FIA appeal
The Monaco GP anomaly: How a pit lane penalty exposed Formula 1’s fractured governance
Asked about his complaints in the immediate aftermath of the decision, he said: “I’ve kind of said what I wanted to say. Obviously we’re appealing, and I think you know it’s nothing against Pierre or Alpine.
“It’s more just that if we had have known that certain things had played out the way they did, we would have made different decisions in the race, which we don’t really think is correct.
“So, yeah, we’ll see what happens out of it.”
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Originally published by Planet F1 —
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