Why Piastri sees disastrous F1 precedent in Gasly penalty U-turn

Oscar Piastri is “mind-blown” by the decision to cancel Pierre Gasly’s Monaco penalties, something that dropped the McLaren driver from fourth to fifth place, five days after the race.

The stewards took the extraordinary decision to overturn Gasly’s two penalties for pitlane speeding, moving him from seventh to third in the Monaco classification.

That cost Isack Hadjar his first podium finish for Red Bull and lost Oscar Piastri and the Racing Bulls drivers a position each.

Piastri likely would have been on the podium ahead of Gasly had he not had to serve a penalty for pitlane speeding. But, as was the case for George Russell, because their penalties were served in-race, they couldn’t be reversed like Gasly’s was.

Piastri, a rarely visibly irritated individual, expressed his pure bafflement at the outcome when speaking to the media after Barcelona Grand Prix qualifying.

“I'm pretty mind-blown by the decision, because how you can reverse a decision that was ultimately wrong, but when other people have been penalised for the same thing and served a penalty in the race- how you can then change one penalty, knowing that probably five or six other races have been impacted by that, is astonishing,” Piastri said.

“So, I mean, I've obviously lost a position, but you can only imagine how George is feeling - so I could not believe my eyes.”

Piastri felt short-changed by serving his penalty in the race - while Alpine and Gasly deliberately elected not to, knowing they’d argue their case after the race.

“Yes. I lost the position to Pierre because I served the penalty, so technically I should be P3 - but then, technically George should be P3, and the whole thing is now a mess.

“[It’s] quite the predicament they've got themselves into, and I don't know how you get yourself out of that one, because now the precedent as it is is 'you don't serve the penalty, you take it to court, you wait probably a few months to decide the race', and who the hell wants to go racing like that?

“'Perplexed' is the word I would use.”

Piastri added: “I think before you could kind of say bad luck, it was wrong, but it was wrong for everybody, and everyone was treated the same.

“Now it's very...very much how you...how you judge that. I don't think the race result will be cancelled, but yes, it's quite the situation that's unfolded.”

McLaren and Red Bull have both lodged notice of their intention to appeal the decision.

Team boss Andrea Stella called it a "very difficult case". We have already lodged an intention to appeal, we will use the time that we have available and we will confirm or not confirm the intention to appeal.

"But for the moment I would refrain from commenting too much other than saying that this is a very complex case and we do feel that we should consider appealing."

Both teams still have a window into early next week to decide whether they’ll follow through with that appeal. And Mercedes is speaking to its lawyers to see whether it's worth pursuing an appeal to try and "remedy" the points that Russell lost from his Monaco penalties.

Liam Lawson, who dropped from fifth to sixth because of Gasly’s podium reinstatement, called “it disappointing for us”, but said those who served their penalties in-race (Russell and Piastri) are “probably more frustrated than I am, and I think that's where it gets a little bit tricky”.

“For us, it's just a lost position, but we still had a great week in Monaco.”

‘We did nothing wrong’ - Gasly

Gasly felt vindicated on Friday to get his podium back after “a rollercoaster of emotions the last few days”, while Alpine’s managing director Steve Nielsen felt it was “justice” been done.

And asked about it after qualifying, Gasly delivered a detailed answer as to why he believed he and his team had done nothing wrong.

“I'm just going to make something clear that I know what we did,” Gasly said. “I know we were driving at 59[kph] in the pitlane and we've been accused [of] driving over 60[kph], which wasn't the case.

“What I'm gonna say is that it should not be right to penalise me for something that we haven't done just because others got penalised.

“If a potential mistake was done one time, two times, three times, it's not a reason to do it a fourth time. So I think just to draw the line here.

“Then second point is, I actually don't know whether Oscar or George oversped or not. I haven't seen their data. I don't know if it's the same issue as we've had. Just based on that, I cannot comment.

“Obviously, if they didn't [speed], then that's a big shame. They obviously lost out. Yeah, I mean, I'm not for that.

“I think the situation we are facing is as a team, we decided not to box a second time, change the tyre, not to serve the penalty because we knew that we didn't do anything wrong and we were going to protest it.

“I think the fact that it was a slightly different situation it might be different. But at the end of the day, I think for the sport, fair play to FIA and F1, when you do a mistake and they took their responsibilities. In the end they did well to overturn their decision because in the end we did nothing wrong.

“All I can say is we did a good quali, overtook Norris at the start, found ourselves in P5 at the second start, and we overtook Hadjar on track.

“We crossed the line in P3, so I don't think it was fair to be put in P7 when we did nothing wrong there.”