Alpine de facto Team Principal Flavio Briatore has lashed out at “nasty” FIA judge after losing 2026 Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix podium.
The FIA International Court of Appeal (ICA) overturned the stewards’ decision to reinstate Pierre Gasly to the 2026 Monaco GP podium on Friday.
Gasly, along with four other drivers, had been judged to have breached the pitlane speed limit. This turned out to be a result of an errant timing loop system.
While he took the chequered flag in third, he was demoted down the order after the penalty was added to his race time.
But as the Frenchman had not served his penalty, Alpine were able to appeal the sanction successfully. McLaren, who did serve the penalty imposed on Piastri, and Red Bull (for Isack Hadjar, who was post-facto demoted from the podium to accommodate Gasly) approached the ICA.
The governing body’s highest appellate tribunal ruled that the stewards’ decision to retrospectively amend the results of the race, in the peculiar circumstances, was against sporting fairness.
Consequently, Gasly has been stripped of his third-placed finish. The Anglo-French marque released a statement on social media expressing its “frustration” with the verdict, which it feels has “unjustly punished” them.
Now, Briatore has apparently unearthed a reported case of bias on the judges’ panel.
“I think it’s very unfair, first of all, but we accept the decision,” he said.
“What is very strange was the fourth judge in the panel, and one of the judges acted like a prosecutor.
“For this, [it’s] not a big problem. The problem is, it’s very linked with the McLaren company, because we have a nice picture of this guy at the speech for the McLaren in 2018 in MSO Beverly Hills.
“He made a foundation, it’s called One Drop Foundation. And McLaren gave [it] two or three McLaren cars. And I think this was quite unfair [that] one of the judges was linked with a team with protesting us.”
Alpine to see “what we do next” after FIA verdict
Briatore went as far as to label the judge in question “very nasty”. He insinuated the judge’s previous association with the Woking-based team as prejudicing the independence of the ICA.
“What is unfair is some judge was linked with the McLaren. This is unfair [because] the judge normally [has to] be independent completely and this judge – the name is kind of Italian name – is American, Filippo Marchino, was very nasty during the hearing,” Briatore continued.
“[He] was acting as a prosecutor and after we come down to… what is the reason why [he was] so nasty? He’s very linked with McLaren.
“We were very disappointed to find out one of the judge have a very good relationship with McLaren, working relationship kind.
“I think so the panel needs to be completely independent, and you don’t need somebody linked with some team, especially the team involved with us in this situation. Now we think about what we do next.”
The FIA Judicial and Disciplinary Rules mandate strict disclosures from the judges sitting on the panel of FIA courts. This includes the International Tribunal, the Cost-Cap Adjudication Panel and the ICA.
“The Judges shall undertake to act with full independence and impartiality so as to preserve the independence of the Courts,” reads Article 1.4.
“Each Judge must be and remain independent of the FIA and of the parties involved. Any member of the Courts involved in a particular case must disclose immediately any circumstance which might reasonably be regarded as potentially compromising his independence.”
That said, the only occasion on which a judge is disqualified from hearing an appeal is if they have presided over the same matter before the International Tribunal or in a case which “involves any party or lawyer who belongs to any company, association, law firm or chambers or any kind of entity to which he belongs or in which he takes part in any capacity whatsoever.”
As things stand, however, Alpine has no straight recourse to the French civil courts or the CAS owing to the express jurisdictional bar imposed by the FIA statutes on the appealability of the ICA’s decisions.
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