The Formula 1 Grand Prix in Barcelona is coming up in just a few days, but the chaos of the Monaco race is still dominating the headlines. In the dispute over possible measurement errors, the Alpine racing team has now achieved partial success and secured a hearing.
It was confirmed on Tuesday that Alpine had requested the official hearing. The racing team is said to have had new evidence up its sleeve for this. On Thursday afternoon, the sports commissioners approved the request for a review. The FIA will now have to deal with the case.
Alpine driver Pierre Gasly had originally crossed the finish line in third place on Sunday, but was demoted to seventh after picking up two five-second penalties for speeding in the pit lane. Once he is said to have exceeded the maximum permissible speed of 60 km/h by 0.1 km/h, and a second time by 0.4 km/h.
The catch is the measuring method used by the regulators: They measure the speed in the pit lane based on the time it takes a driver to cover a set distance. In Monaco, however, it’s not that easy because the pit lane is not a straight line, but a curve.
Numerous drivers shortened the route on Sunday by cutting the curve. They weren’t traveling too fast, says Alpine, but rather they just covered a slightly shorter route for which they needed slightly less time. As a result, they were “blitzed” even though they were not too fast.
Evidence only presented on Wednesday
The teams received a total of six penalties on Sunday. Some of the teams therefore also took part in the video conference between Alpine and the stewards. It was determined that the measuring system was inaccurate “and overestimated the speed of Gasly’s car.”
This is according to evidence submitted on Wednesday. This meant that the evidence was not available to the race stewards until well after the race – a prerequisite for the review to be admissible.
The actual hearing will take place on Thursday afternoon and the result is eagerly awaited. Isack Hadjar could possibly subsequently lose his podium place to Gasly.