Red Bull Team Principal and CEO Laurent Mekies makes “matter of principle” admission after lodging appeal against Pierre Gasly’s podium reinstatement at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix.
Isack Hadjar was forced to abdicate his second-ever F1 podium after Gasly’s two five-second penalties were overturned by the FIA.
The Alpine driver was reprimanded, during the race on the streets of the Principality, for two separate pit lane speeding incidents.
The Frenchman chose not to serve them, which meant even though he took the chequered flag in third, he was demoted down the order to seventh after the stewards added the 10 seconds to his race time – with Hadjar being promoted to the podium.
Crucially, though, because Gasly had not served his penalties, he was entitled to a post-race appeal which the Enstone-based team won.
Motorsport Week understands that Red Bull have decided to now lodge their intention to appeal this decision [with PlanetF1 reporting they have duly done so] which Mekies insists is for a bigger reason than to just seek justice for Hadjar.
“We have not yet submitted the full appeal. We have a bit of time for that,” he said.
“But we think it’s more so a matter of principle for the goodness of the sport, in order for the sport to get the right clarity on how we go about non-appealable penalties during the race, and getting the right results at the end of the race.”
Red Bull urges for “clarity” after Pierre Gasly’s F1 Monaco GP penalties overturned
Many in the paddock were left with a bad taste in their mouths after Alpine prevailed in their right to review proceedings.
One such person was McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. Not only could McLaren not appeal his penalty, because he had already served them, the Australian argued that Gasly was only elevated in terms of track position because he had dove into the pits to serve his penalty.
Mekies built on this argument, urging the sport to have a clearer approach towards sporting penalties in the future.
“No measurement system is perfect on us. There is not one single way to measure the speed, and they are all wrong,” Mekies explained.
“However, we have been working with that measurement system for a very high number of years.
“It was the same than the day before, to same than on Friday, to same than the previous years, and we have all adapted to it, and 17 or 18 cars have managed to be legal.
“So we just need to make sure that as a sport we have a solid enough approach, so that moving forward we get the right clarity to the fans and to the competitors.”
The Monaco GP pit lane speeding drama is far from over, even though F1 now moves onto the Red Bull Ring for the Austrian GP, in two weeks’ time.
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