Mercedes has withdrawn its request for a review regarding Pierre Gasly’s restored Monaco Grand Prix podium, effectively acknowledging that there was no realistic path to securing any benefit for George Russell. Team principal Toto Wolff had already hinted at this outcome when he explained that Mercedes was exploring legal options to protect the British driver, who had also been penalized during the Principality race.
The developments surrounding the Gasly case continue to evolve almost daily. On Wednesday, the FIA confirmed that Mercedes had submitted a request for a review in an attempt to overturn the decision that reinstated the French driver’s podium finish. The original appeal process had revealed that Formula One Management (FOM) had made an error in calculating the distance between the sensors used to estimate pit lane speed.
However, the Brackley-based team has now decided to step back, abandoning the review request that would have led to an initial hearing scheduled for Saturday morning.
Among the drivers affected by penalties in Monaco was George Russell, who received two separate sanctions. The first came for exceeding the pit lane speed limit, just as Pierre Gasly had done. The second was issued because Russell failed to serve a five-second penalty during his pit stop, a consequence of internal confusion that resulted in the British driver stopping when he should not have done so.
It was a communication error within the team that proved far more complicated than it initially appeared, and one that has already been examined in detail. During the Barcelona weekend, Mercedes confirmed that it was evaluating possible legal action to protect Russell’s interests, given that the penalties had dropped him out of the points-paying positions.
Toto Wolff explained that the review request was not intended to strip Pierre Gasly of his podium finish but rather to protect George Russell and ensure equal treatment. The same principle also motivated McLaren to challenge the stewards’ decision to restore third place to the French driver.
“We certainly wouldn’t appeal against Gasly’s result, but we would like the FIA to examine what remedies might be available regarding George’s race. And I don’t think there is… I think there are time limits and other legal constraints, but certainly something for… You know, we have a reason to be upset,” Wolff said during the Barcelona press conference.
But how could such a solution have been implemented? The regulations provide no mechanism for retrospectively removing seconds from a final race result, particularly in the absence of a formal appeal concerning the penalty itself, as was the case with Mercedes. The team was fully aware that it had not properly served the penalty during the pit stop, which is precisely why the subsequent drive-through penalty was imposed.
That would have been extremely difficult to challenge, especially considering Mercedes had already attempted, unsuccessfully, to argue that the time lost in the pit lane should have been considered sufficient to serve the sanction.
It is understandable that Mercedes sought equal treatment, given that Russell, like Oscar Piastri, was among the drivers affected by the FOM error. On the other hand, rival teams could have argued that Russell’s situation was more complex than Piastri’s because of the internal team mistake that led to the second penalty.
While it is true that the second penalty was, in some ways, directly linked to the first, it is equally true that the second sanction resulted from an error by Mercedes and Russell themselves. Even if a mechanism existed to remove seconds from a race result after the fact—which it does not—other teams could reasonably argue that cancelling a penalty stemming from a team’s own mistake would not be consistent with sporting fairness.
Given that the only realistic route available to Mercedes would have been to challenge Gasly’s restored podium without securing any concrete benefit for Russell, the team ultimately chose to withdraw the request. The decision is consistent with what Toto Wolff had already indicated last week, stressing that obtaining any meaningful advantage for his driver would have been extremely difficult.
“Following the decision to overturn Pierre Gasly’s time penalty, it was important for us to explore all available options to assess the impact of George’s pit lane speeding penalty on his race result. We had a limited time window available during the Barcelona race weekend to request a Right of Review, and we did so in order to protect our position on the matter,” Mercedes said in a statement announcing the withdrawal of the appeal.
“Subsequent constructive discussions with the FIA and Formula 1 demonstrated their commitment to reviewing the unique circumstances that emerged from the Monaco Grand Prix and to proactively addressing the factors that caused them. Given this clear commitment, we concluded that pursuing our Right of Review request would not be beneficial either to our team or to the sport, and we have therefore withdrawn our application.”
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