What to expect as Alpine bid to overturn F1 Monaco GP result to be heard today

Alpine’s attempt to overturn the penalties that cost Pierre Gasly a podium finish at the Monaco Grand Prix will be heard today.

Gasly finished third on the road but was among five drivers to be penalised for exceeding the 60km/h pit lane speed limit during Monaco’s race on Sunday.

A pair of five-second time penalties that were added to his finishing time dropped the Frenchman from third to seventh in the final classification.

Gasly said he was “heartbroken” by the lost podium and urged the FIA to investigate the matter following an unusually large number of pit lane speeding penalties.

In the hours after the race, Alpine confirmed it had requested a right of review, which F1’s governing bout the FIA confirmed will be heard virtually by the Monaco stewards at 12pm UK time on Thursday.

F1 right of review hearings are held in two parts. For a secondary hearing to be held to determine whether the original decision should be altered, the appealing team is required to present “a significant and relevant new element which was unavailable to the party seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned.”

It is rare that teams succeed when requesting a right of review, and it seems unlikely that the stewards would reinstate Gasly onto the podium.

This would open up a can of worms because the other four drivers - who served their penalties in the race - would theoretically have a case to have their punishments rescinded, leading to a potentially messy scenario for F1.

There has been no official explanation for why so many drivers were pinged for pit lane speeding infringements.

Theories suggest that they were caused by by drivers taking a shorter line into the pit lane entry and therefore carrying a higher average speed.

It has also been suggested that drivers may have been taking a similar approach at the pit lane exit, which was wider this year to accommodate Cadillac.

"To be honest, we don’t understand why we got those," Alpine's boss Steve Nielsen said after the race. "We don’t understand why a lot of teams got those.

“I think six infringements, three by our team, one by Ferrari [Lewis Hamilton], one by McLaren [Oscar Piastri], one by Mercedes [George Russell], which is very, very unusual. That’s the sort of number you would expect to see across a season, and we saw them all in one race today.

"So we’ve asked the FIA for a process called a Right of Review. It’s not a protest or an appeal, it’s different. It allows us to compile all our data and evidence, and it allows us to sit with the FIA and fully understand how they came to the conclusion that we transgressed the pit lane speed limit.

“Because we don’t think we did. But we’re open to being shown if we did, so it’s really an open conversation with the FIA about what we could’ve done differently. Or perhaps what they could have done differently."

What would it mean if Alpine is successful?

In the unlikely event Gasly’s penalties were overturned and he was reinstated into P3, it would have several consequences.

Isack Hadjar would lose his first podium finish for Red Bull, and every other driver would also shuffle down a position between third and seventh.

Gasly would finish third ahead of Hadjar, Oscar Piastri, Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad, who would be demoted from sixth to seventh.

Alpine and Gasly would gain an additional nine points, while Racing Bulls would lose four points.

This would have ramifications in the constructors’ championship as Alpine would move 15 points clear of Racing Bulls in the battle for fifth place. The gap currently stands at just two points.

Red Bull would also lose three potentially valuable points in the constructors’ championship, thought it would remain a distant fourth.