Mercedes has “reason to be annoyed” about Monaco F1 penalty mess as it explores legal options
Mercedes is exploring its legal options for George Russell's penalties at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Toto Wolff says Mercedes is exploring its legal options for George Russell’s penalties at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix after Alpine’s success.
The FIA announced on Friday that Pierre Gasly had been reinstated to third place in last Sunday’s Monaco race after Alpine successfully overturned the French driver’s pair of time penalties for speeding in the pitlane following a key error made by Formula One Management, the official timekeeping supplier.
Following Alpine’s case, Mercedes CEO and team principal Wolff revealed the Silver Arrows are looking at whether there are grounds for “remedies” for Russell, who was also hit with a costly speeding penalty in Monaco.
Russell received an additional drive-through penalty after the original speeding punishment was incorrectly served following a Mercedes blunder. Mercedes believes Russell should have never received the penalty in the first place, based on the extraordinary revelations to come out of Alpine’s appeal.
The penalties resulted in Russell dropping out of the points, which leaves him a massive 68 points adrift of Mercedes team-mate and championship rival Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who claimed his fifth consecutive victory in Monaco.
“It was a very unfortunate situation and clearly we can all learn that because that wasn’t something that just came up on Sunday, suddenly 10 cars [five] that were in breach of pit lane speeding, that was something that was flagged before,” Wolff told media including Crash.net in Barcelona on Friday.
“For us as a team and especially for George, massive implications. He had a difficult qualifying but he moved all the way back up there and clearly without the penalty, without us not serving it correctly, it would have been a totally different outcome for his race.
“Whether he would have made the podium or not, is a different question. But a different outcome on his championship situation. That’s why it’s unfortunate.
“We are assessing as we speak what the Gasly situation does for George. Obviously there are certain timing restraints. We won’t appeal the Gasly result certainly, but we would like the FIA to look at what other remedies there could be for George’s race.
“I think we have some timing limitations and some other legal constraints but definitely we have a reason to be annoyed for and I wish we could have had those conversations before the race on Sunday.”
Why Mercedes has little hope of changing Russell's result
The crucial difference between Gasly and the other five drivers to be penalised for speeding was that the Alpine driver did not serve his punishment during the race. Instead, the combined 10-second time penalty was applied after Gasly crossed the line.
Mercedes also missed the 96-hour time window to lodge a right of review appeal following the Monaco Grand Prix.
Under F1’s regulations, the stewards do not have the power to ‘undo’ a penalty that has already been served.
The stewards noted in their verdict "that in relation to other cars that were penalised, some served their penalty and this regrettably, impacted their race strategies and therefore their race result.
"There will undoubtedly remain questions as to whether those breaches were genuine. There is no regulation that gives the Stewards the power to 'undo' a served penalty.
"In any case, it is impossible to imagine how such power could be applied. Notably, no other party petitioned for a Right of Review within the allowable time frame."
Asked if Mercedes sees any chance of the result being changed for Russell, Wolff replied: “I think talk is definitely going forward, but I was just on the phone to our lawyers, and we also need to look at what can we do for George.
“If the drive-through didn’t happen, it’s the equivalent of 20 seconds’ race time. What would 20-seconds of race time meant for his result? Do I think that we realistically have a position, or a chance of reverting the result? I don’t think so.
“But we definitely have to give it a go of there’s a millimetre of chance to do so, and bring him back to P3 or P4, whatever we’ve calculated.”
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