Gasly feels he rightfully finished third in Monaco: 'I can't judge Russell and Piastri'

During the Grand Prix through the streets of Monte Carlo, Pierre Gasly crossed the finish line in third place, but he could not step on the podium. The Frenchman was penalized for speeding in the pit lane twice, and as a result, 10 seconds were added to his final result. As a result, Gasly was classified seventh. Isack Hadjar was then promoted to the podium.

After a successful right of review, it became clear this weekend in Barcelona that Gasly scored a podium. That caused annoyance for the likes of Oscar Piastri, who was also penalized for speeding and served his penalty during the race. Without that penalty, the McLaren driver would have finished ahead of Gasly.

Nevertheless, Gasly feels he deserves third place, even though besides Piastri there were more drivers who received an unjust penalty and would have finished ahead of the Frenchman. "I'm just going to make something clear," he says in Barcelona, answering a question from GPblog. "I know what we did. I know we were driving at 59 km/h in the pit lane and we've been accused to drive over 60, which wasn't the case. So I think what I'm going to say is that it should not be right to penalize me for something that we haven't done just because others got penalized.

Gasly points out that Alpine decided not to pit again, so the penalty did not have to be served immediately. That made a Right of Review possible, which did not apply to drivers who did stop again and stood still for five seconds. "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, might be different. But at the end of the day, I think for the sport, you know, fair play to FIA and F1. I think when you do a mistake, they took the responsibility. And in the end, they did well to overturn their decision because in the end, we did nothing wrong."

Gasly was not physically on the podium in Monaco a week ago, but the trophy that Hadjar originally received will indeed be presented to the Alpine driver. When that will happen is unclear. In any case, it will not be this weekend in Barcelona, because the trophy is not present at the circuit. GPblog understands that Red Bull Racing is looking for the moment to hand the trophy to its new owner, and there has already been contact with Alpine about this.

It is not ruled out, incidentally, that Gasly and Alpine will have to hand over the trophy again at some point. Red Bull and McLaren intend to appeal the awarding of third place to Gasly. If they pursue their case, the International Court of Appeal (ICA) will review the file. In principle, the ICA can decide to invalidate the stewards' decision.