Martin Brundle reveals stance on ‘brutal’ F1 penalty fest at Monaco GP

Martin Brundle has weighed in on the Formula 1 penalty bonanza at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Five drivers in total were penalised for exceeding the 60km/h pit lane speed limit in Monaco on Sunday, with Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto all punished.

It was an unusually high number of penalties, particularly given that all five drivers exceeded the limit by just 0.1km/h, though Gasly did go 0.4km/h over on one of his two speeding offences.

While many observes felt the punishments went too far in Monaco, Brundle believes it is “necessarily brutal” for F1 to take a black-and-white approach to such infringements.

“There was a significant sub-story to this whole race, that of speeding in the pit lane,” Brundle wrote in his latest Sky Sports F1 column.

“A few drivers had fallen foul of that even just doing their reconnaissance laps to the grid. It was a situation which had been noted between the race director and teams during practice too.

“Pit-lane speed is measured by distance between various loops in the track surface, and as always drivers were finding a way to cut into the pits slightly early to save a metre or two.

“Because of the tight confines, the speed limit in Monaco is reduced from 80 kph to 60 kph. Despite doing everything right drivers were being penalised for 60.1 kph.

“Rules are rules because if that's fine, then 60.2 is only a fraction more and so must be fine too. Just like when a car is half a kilo underweight, in F1 it's necessarily brutal.”

While Hamilton and Piastri’s penalties did not cause them to lose positions, the punishments were particularly painful for Gasly, who was stripped of a podium finish, and Russell, who dropped out of the points.

“There were many of these tiny infractions, including manageable five-second penalties for Hamilton and Oscar Piastri,” Brundle continued.

“But it would ruin George Russell's race because during his pit stop under the Safety Car, the Mercedes team were obliged to serve his five-second speeding penalty before commencing a tyre change, and at the same time all cars were obliged to come through the pit lane to allow the crashed car in the last corner to be cleared.

“There was confusion as he queued up behind his teammate and he would receive an effective 20-second drive-through penalty, which would put him at the back of the bunched-up field. A critical podium chance was lost but I have no doubt George will return to form and luck.

“It was arguably even more painful for Pierre Gasly in his Alpine who was both infuriated and heartbroken to receive two pit-lane speeding penalties 20 minutes apart, for 60.1 kph and 60.4 kph.

“He would cross the finish line in third place which would normally mean a trip to the legendary royal podium, but 10 seconds of penalties would demote him to seventh through no fault of his own. The team have demanded a right of review, but I suspect that'll change nothing.”