Following Tuesday’s announcement by McLaren regarding their appeal against the cancellation of penalties that restored Pierre Gasly’s Monaco podium, the FIA has confirmed that Mercedes has also requested a review of the Principality’s Grand Prix results. The hearing has been scheduled for Saturday at 9:00 AM, with the clear objective of putting the matter to bed before the Austrian Grand Prix weekend kicks off.
A document published on Wednesday by the FIA confirmed that Mercedes has lodged a Right of Review petition concerning the Monaco stewards’ decision, which followed Alpine’s successful appeal that led to the erasure of penalties handed out during the race.
As is standard with right of review procedures, the hearing will unfold in two distinct stages. In the first phase, the team must prove that they have brought forward new, significant, and relevant elements that were completely unavailable at the time of the original decision. Only if this specific threshold is met will the process advance to the second stage, where the actual merits of the appeal will be officially evaluated.
Several drivers had been penalized during the Grand Prix for exceeding the mandatory 60 km/h pit lane speed limit. Gasly originally received two separate five-second sanctions, which dropped him from the podium positions all the way down to seventh in the final classification.
However, Alpine successfully challenged the penalties after FOM recognized a calibration error in measuring the distance between the loop sensors used to calculate car speeds in the pit lane. Once the instrumentation flaw was verified, the stewards elected to revoke the sanctions given to the Alpine driver—the only team to have requested a review at that point—subsequently handing the Monaco podium back to Gasly.
That verdict immediately triggered intense questioning regarding the other drivers penalized under the exact same circumstances. McLaren and Red Bull quickly notified the FIA of their intent to appeal, utilizing the standard 96-hour window to formalize their requests. The Woking-based outfit then confirmed its appeal on Tuesday, emphasizing that their primary goal is not simply to reclaim lost points, but rather to guarantee sporting equity compared to those who had already served their penalties by trusting FOM’s official timing hardware.
Initially, Toto Wolff explained that Mercedes was evaluating potential legal avenues to protect George Russell, who had been penalized twice: first for failing to respect the pit lane speed limit, and a second time for conducting a pit stop without serving the five-second penalty—a sequence of events that ultimately triggered a drive-through penalty.
This compounding chain of events caused Russell to plummet entirely out of the points-paying positions, transforming a comfortable top-10 afternoon into a weekend where he walked away empty-handed. However, since there is no regulatory path to directly erase the penalties already served by the British driver, Mercedes has now decided to appeal against the FIA’s decision to give the podium back to Gasly instead.
Ultimately, this is less about the points on the board—especially since George Russell would not recover what he lost anyway, given that his secondary penalty stemmed from an internal miscommunication between the pit wall and the driver, who should not have pit—and more about a unified push for fairness. What Mercedes is targeting is a fundamental principle of equal treatment that applies to every competitor on the grid.
In conclusion, Mercedes’ decision to back McLaren and Red Bull in the Gasly podium dispute highlights the growing frustration among top teams regarding officiating consistency and technical measurement errors. By prioritizing sporting equity over a simple grab for points, the Brackley-based squad is pushing the FIA for absolute transparency as the paddock prepares for a tense double-header in Austria and Great Britain.
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