It’s highly unusual for points to be handed out on the Friday of a grand prix weekend, but Pierre Gasly’s 2026 account is nine points richer as his head hits the pillow in Barcelona after practice.
His trophy cabinet is a little fuller too thanks to the Monaco Grand Prix stewards agreeing to rescind the pair of penalties that cost him a podium finish last Sunday in Monte Carlo.
Gasly had been twice pinged for speeding in the pit lane during last weekend’s race. Though he took the chequered flag third, the post-race application of a pair of five-second penalties dropped him to seven, costing him points and a trophy as well as, more importantly, his moment on the sport’s most famous podium — and in the closest thing the Frenchman has to a home grand prix.
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“Been a rollercoaster of emotions the last few days, weird celebrations, but most importantly, incredibly happy we got our result back,” Gasly wrote on social media. “Huge thanks to my amazing team and all the people who supported us!”
The backflip rested on the bizarre revelation that the Monaco pit lane had been measured incorrectly, which the stewards found led directly to Gasly’s speed being over-estimated.
But the decision, handed down shortly before the start of first practice in Spain, has opened a can of worms that overshadowed the first day of running at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix and could see the issue embroiled in another series of hearing — and perhaps even end up in an FIA tribunal in Paris if rivals teams are sufficiently enthusiastic.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Gasly was one of five drivers penalised for speeding in the pit lane on Sunday but the only driver to be pinged twice in the race.
It was an unusually high penalty count — just five had been doled out over the previous five rounds of the season, only three of which were in races.
In Monaco alone there were 11 infringements over the course of the weekend.
It wasn’t until during the race that the stewards found the strike rate strange, though they checked with race control and were told there were no obvious technical problems to report, freeing them to continue handing out penalties.
It wasn’t until after the race the Alpine decided to act.
It did so based on one of the fundamental inputs used to determine pit lane speeding.
Pit lane speed isn’t assessed with a radar gun or the car’s speedometer; it’s measured according to average speed based on a series of timing loops that register each car’s transponder as it travels down the lane.
The Monaco pit lane had nine timing loops measuring zones of between 10 and 40 metres. If a car is judged to have travelled through any one of those zones faster than the 60-kilometre-per-hour Monaco limit, they were pinged for speeding.
It’s the same system that’s been used at every race for years.
In Monte Carlo, however, the system had a critical flaw. Formula One Management — which serves as the official timekeeper responsible for gathering this data — got one of the measurements wrong.
The first zone, which began at the pit entry line, was logged as being 2.692 metres. In actual fact, according to post-race measurements, it was 77 centimetres shorter — just 2.615 metres.
Complicating matters further is that the barrier at pit entry was moved back this year, which allowed drivers to take a shorter trajectory than expected.
To get calculate speed, you divide distance by time. But because this calculation was using the wrong distance, Gasly appeared to be moving through pit lane faster than he was, resulting in the penalty.
Using the corrected distance, Gasly was found to have been doing no more than 58.8 kilometres per hour when he was pinged.
Convinced to their comfortable satisfaction that Gasly wasn’t speeding, the stewards rescinded both penalties.
Gasly’s podium, the sixth of his career, was reinstated.
WHAT THE HEARINGS DIDN’T FIND
Alpine was the only team to request a right of review for a speeding penalty in Monaco.
Despite the stewards uncovering a fatal flaw in the way the pit lane speed is measured, there will be no relief for any of the four other drivers who had been penalised.
“The stewards have sympathy for the argument that many other cars were not reported for exceeding the speed limit; however, these two right of review petitions relate only to the two penalties that were imposed on [Gasly] for allegedly exceeding the pit lane speed limit,” the stewards said.
“The stewards note 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.
“Notably, no other party petitioned for a right of review within the allowable time frame.”
Of the four other drivers to be penalised, only one of them — Gasly’s teammate, Franco Colapinto — had his penalty applied after the race, though he took the chequered flag outside the points anyway.
Lewis Hamilton served his penalty during the first safety car, but Ferrari forced Charles Leclerc to pit too and wait behind him, retain his second place.
Oscar Piastri, however, took his penalty during the race and lost three places. Gasly’s rescinded penalties drop him to fifth in Monaco, costing him two points.
George Russell and Mercedes will feel most bitter about this, however. Russell was pinged for speeding, but it was the miscommunication between him and his team during the first safety car that had him pit for tyres without serving his penalty, which incurred a drive-through penalty that dropped him out of the points.
He was running third at the time, meaning he lost around 15 points, dropping to 68 points behind title-leading teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
“There is no regulation that gives the stewards the power to ‘undo’ a served penalty,” the stewards said. “In any case, it is impossible to imagine how such power could be applied.”
MERCEDES CONSIDERS ITS LEGAL OPTIONS
Mercedes isn’t appealing the finding, but Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said the team was considering all its legal options in light of Russell’s disastrous result stemming from his speeding penalty.
“We would like the FIA to look at what could be the remedies for George’s race,” he said. “We have a reason to be annoyed for.
“We were on the phone with our lawyers to look at what can we do for George.
“A drive-through, if it didn’t happen at the end, is equivalent of 20 seconds race time. What would 20 seconds race time have meant for his result?
“Do we think that we realistically have a position, a chance of reverting the result? I don’t think so, but we definitely have to give it a go if we see that there is a millimetre of chance to do so and bring him back to whatever it was before.
Subtracting 20 seconds from Russell’s race time would put him fourth, fractionally ahead of Hadjar.
The stewards, however, emphasised that it wasn’t within its power to reverse penalties served during the race.
It’s therefore extremely difficult to imagine a situation in which Russell rescues any points from Monte Carlo — at least without Mercedes attempting to take the matter all the way to the FIA International Court of Appeal, a quasi-legal body for motorsport.
Two teams are pushing back against the Gasly verdict, however, with Red Bull Racing and McLaren both notifying their intention to appeal.
Both teams have lost points through Gasly’s promotion. Hadjar also lost his first Red Bull Racing podium and just the second top-three finish of his career.
Both teams were observers in the hearing and have already made their arguments.
Red Bull Racing argued that the pit lane settings were the same all weekend and that teams had been told to have their drivers modify the way they traversed pit lane as a result. The team also argued that it’s well know that the “method of calculating the pit lane speed is imperfect”.
McLaren argued along similar lines, contending that teams coach their drivers on managing measurement discrepancies.
Lodging an intention to appeal doesn’t necessarily lock either team into committing to the process; teams have only an hour to notify that they’re considering appealing but then have four days to get the ball rolling or withdraw the application.
Despite the Monaco Grand Prix having finished almost a week ago, there could be a long way to go yet before we get the final classification.
NORRIS GIVES McLAREN HOPE WITH FP2-TOPPING TIME
On the track, McLaren rocketed out of the blocks to take top spot in second practice.
Lando Norris took top spot in a tight battle with George Russell and McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, the three drivers separated by just 0.057 seconds.
After two weekends of woe, McLaren suddenly looks back on form.
“It just seems to be working better than the last few weeks, which is a good sign,” Norris said.
“It’s not an easy track … it’s quick — obviously very different t the last few tracks we’ve been to in Monaco and Montreal.
“You’re playing with the car in a very different regime to where we have been the last few weeks, and it seems to be also just working in a better place than in the last few weeks.
“I think we’re up there with the people we want to be with. It’s hard to know what fuel loads and power modes other people were one, but I think we’re just happy that we’re heading in the right direction from the last couple of weeks.
“It’s clear that the car is working better. It’s probably not working as good as we want still, and there are still things I’m not happy with. We need to improve, and I want to improve, but I think we can’t complain much considering how the last month has been.
“We’ll just work hard tonight and see what we can maximise tomorrow.”
The difference maker is the circuit and the weather. After two tracks with no real high-energy corners — and after a chilly race in Montreal — Barcelona is a hot and high-downforce track.
It’s far more traditional fare for a Formula 1 car.
“It’s just a very different kind of circuit to what we’ve had in the last couple,” said McLaren racing director Randy Singh. “Even just the ambient conditions, it’s a lot hotter.
“What we’re dealing with here is much more things like the tyre overheating and degrading, whereas the last couple of events it’s been a lot more around getting the tyres to work in the first place.
“We’ve not really had enough races this year to see if [tyre usage] is still a strength. It’s not clear that it will be, but hopefully it will be. I think Sunday is really going to come down to managing the deg and having good stint pace.”
Piastri, for what it’s worth, said McLaren was “in the fight at the front”.
“A much more satisfying position to be in,” he said. “It was a pretty good Friday for us. We’re pleased with the progress we’ve made, and the pace is a lot better than last week, which is a positive step.
“The key now is to maintain this momentum into tomorrow. While the initial signs are encouraging, there’s still plenty to learn and a lot more performance to find.”
Miami, similarly warm, would certainly suggest McLaren can be optimistic.
However, the long-run pace analysis from FP2 suggested the team isn’t converting its single-lap pace to an entire stint.
Mercedes emerged as the lead car, with McLaren towards the back of the frontrunning pack.
That’s the sort of work the team will have to undertake overnight if it’s to attempt to break its victory drought this weekend.