FIA sets date for Mercedes right of review as Monaco F1 penalty fallout intensifies
A date has been set for when Mercedes' right of review of the Monaco Grand Prix result will be heard.
The Mercedes Formula 1 team's right of review request over the result of the Monaco Grand Prix will be heard on Saturday.
It comes after Alpine successfully won its appeal which saw Pierre Gasly reinstated to the podium after having two five-second time penalties for speeding in the pit lane rescinded.
George Russell was one of five drivers - including Gasly - to be penalised for speeding in the pit lane, which teams believe were incorrect.
After Alpine successfully managed to overturn Gasly’s penalty, Mercedes is seeking to do the same for Russell.
Russell was hit with a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane, but was handed a drive-through penalty after a Mercedes blunder meant the original punishment was not correctly served.
As a result of the double-whammy penalty, Russell dropped out of the points, marking a significant setback to his title hopes.
Mercedes has calculated that Russell would have finished as high as fourth without the penalty.
A Mercedes team representative is required to report to the stewards on Saturday 20 June at 8am UK time for a virtual hearing.
The hearing will be held in two parts, with the first determining whether the right of review is admissible and if there is “significant and relent new element which was unavailable to the stewards at the time of the decision concerned”.
Russell sits third in the championship, 50 points behind Mercedes team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
What chance does Mercedes have of success?
Toto Wolff conceded over the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix weekend that Mercedes expects its right of review to fail.
“I have to be honest I’m not sure this is a realistic outcome because you open up a can of worms,” Wolff said.
“Normally, if you have a stop-and-go and you didn’t do it it’s 20 seconds and then 20 seconds would put George back to P4.
“But then what are all the other consequences? So I don’t think this is going to hold with the judges, but we have to do it for George’s benefit.”
For a start, Mercedes missed the original 96-hour window following the Monaco race to lodge an appeal against the penalties.
There is also a key difference between Gasly and Russell’s penalties. Crucially, Gasly’s penalties were applied after the race and not during, like Russell’s race.
Under F1’s regulations, the stewards do not have the power to ‘undo’ a penalty that has already been served.
In their verdict relating to Gasly, the stewards admitted "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.”
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