Piastri explains why McLaren are appealing Monaco GP result

Oscar Piastri says he is concerned a “tricky precedent” will be set as the main reason for McLaren’s appeal over the Monaco Grand Prix result.

McLaren and Red Bull are protesting the race classification from Monaco through the FIA International Court of Appeal – the highest and final appeal tribunal for motorsport – after Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was reinstated to the podium.

Earlier this month, Alpine successfully appealed Gasly’s speeding penalties and provided evidence that Monaco’s pit lane distance was incorrect, thus the drivers’ speed was also being measured incorrectly.

As a result, Gasly returned to third and bumped down Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar to fourth, McLaren’s Piastri to fifth, with Racing Bulls pair Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad down to sixth and seventh.

However, other drivers including Piastri, George Russell, Lewis Hamilton and Franco Colapinto pitted during a Safety Car to serve their penalties, so were not able to appeal like Alpine did with Gasly.

The FIA are yet to announce a date for the appeal cases in Paris but it is likely to take several weeks.

“I’ve never seen a race like that, where there’s so many pit lane speeding penalties, and in my case specifically, I knew I wasn’t speeding either,” said Piastri.

“But the approach is always, well you have the penalty, you can’t really argue with it in a lot of cases, which I think in 99 per cent of things is a good thing.

“The risk that we have now is any time a team or a driver feels that a penalty is potentially wrong, or they have a chance of changing it, you go through this whole cycle where we still don’t officially know the results of the race a month later, which is the biggest thing.”

Gasly was the only front-runner not to pit after he was given his speeding penalties, so 10 seconds was originally added onto his final race classification which demoted him from third to seventh.

Sky Sports F1‘s Martin Brundle suggested the success of Alpine’s appeal could lead to teams avoiding pitting in certain scenarios to effectively argue or protest their case post-race, which Piastri also hinted at.

He said: “It [McLaren’s appeal] is nothing against Pierre or Alpine. It’s more just that if we hadn’t known that certain things hadn’t played out the way they did, we would have made different decisions in the race, which we don’t really think is correct.”

Gasly: Mistakes should be corrected

Gasly received his third-place trophy earlier this week after Red Bull and Hadjar kept hold of it for over two weeks.

The pair joked about it during Thursday’s press conference at this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix before Gasly suggested McLaren and Red Bull’s appeals should have nothing to do with his podium result.

“For the good of the sport, we don’t want to see that happen again in the future. It was a mistake done during that weekend, and it’s important we all learn from it,” he said.

“At the same time, the mistake was done but it can be corrected because it’s been unfairly given for no wrongdoing, so in that case, in our situation, if you have a chance to correct it, it’s the right thing as a sport to do it.

“I was very pleased by the actions and the outcome of the decision post-race. From McLaren, Oscar, George’s situation, I completely understand that for their own performance I’ve got nothing to do with their results, but they probably feel some sort of injustice from what’s been done to them.

“But that has nothing to do with Alpine or our own race, and that’s something they need to sort out on their side. But I do think if you can correct a mistake which was done, it’s the right way of approaching it to come back on it, and that’s what I like to see in the future.”

Piastri added: “I kind of agree with Pierre’s point that if there’s something that can be corrected, then I can definitely see why it can be.

“But it also sets a bit of a tricky precedent because you could just end up with everybody not serving their penalties, then arguing about it for weeks after, which is not what anyone wants to see. A difficult situation with two sides to it.”

Sky Sports F1’s live Austrian GP schedule

Friday June 26
8.50am: F3 Practice
10am: F2 Practice
12pm: Austrian GP Practice One (session starts at 12.30pm)
1.55pm: F3 Qualifying
2.30pm: Team bosses’ press conference
2.50pm: F2 Qualifying
3.35pm: Austrian GP Practice Two (session starts at 4pm)
5.15pm: The F1 Show

Saturday June 27
9am: F3 Sprint
11.15am: Austrian GP Practice Three (session starts at 11.30am)
1.10pm: F2 Sprint
2.15pm: Austrian GP Qualifying build-up*
3pm: AUSTRIAN GP QUALIFYING*
5pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook

Sunday June 28
7.35am: F3 Feature Race
9.05am: F2 Feature Race
10.50am: Porsche Supercup
12.30pm: Austrian GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
2pm: THE AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX*
4pm: Austrian GP reaction: Chequered Flag
5pm: Ted’s Notebook

*Also on Sky Sports Main Event

Formula 1’s European season continues with the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime

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