Piastri 'mind-blown' as Gasly's Monaco podium reinstated despite penalising rival drivers

Oscar Piastri has described himself as “mind-blown” after FIA stewards reinstated Pierre Gasly’s Monaco Grand Prix podium on Friday, a decision that cost the McLaren driver a position he had effectively earned by correctly serving a penalty Gasly ignored.

Gasly was handed two five-second time penalties at the end of last Sunday’s race for separate pitlane speeding violations. Evidence provided by FOM, which oversees F1 timekeeping, subsequently revealed a discrepancy in how pitlane entry speeds were measured at Monaco’s unique pit entry, meaning Gasly and four other drivers had been incorrectly penalised. Stewards annulled Gasly’s penalties and elevated him from seventh back to third.

The problem, as Piastri sees it, is that he and George Russell had already served their own penalties during the race — penalties issued under the same flawed measurement. Piastri made an extra pitstop specifically to comply, which is the reason he fell behind Gasly in the first place. Russell fared even worse: he pitted to serve his penalty, then received a drive-through for failing to do so in time, dropping the title contender entirely out of the points.

“When other people have been penalised for the same thing and served a penalty in the race, how you can then change one penalty, knowing that at least five or six other racers have been impacted by that, is astonishing,” Piastri said. “I’ve obviously lost the position, but I can only imagine how George is feeling. I could not believe my eyes.”

Piastri acknowledged the ruling has created a situation with no clean resolution. “Technically I should be P3, but then technically George should be P3. The whole thing is now a mess,” he said. “The precedent as it is, is you don’t serve the penalty, you take it to court, wait probably a few months to decide the race — and who the hell wants to go racing like that? Perplexed is the word I would use.”

Both McLaren and Red Bull have notified the FIA of their intention to appeal the stewards’ decision, triggering a 96-hour window from Friday afternoon in which the two teams can study the rulebook and the ruling before deciding whether to proceed with a formal appeal.