After Alpine managed to successfully overturn Pierre Gasly’s penalties from Monaco, Mercedes has also decided to go that route.

According to Autosport, Mercedes has launched the procedure to request a right of review with the FIA to draw a direct challenge to George Russell’s penalty in Monaco.

“On the Gasly thing, yes, we've asked for a right of review because we just simply want to sit on the table when decisions are being made,” said Wolff on Sunday.

Gasly's appeal has now pushed Mercedes to argue that the evidence that was used to clear Gasly should also be used to assist Russell. In fact, Russell isn’t the only one penalised for such a penalty, as even Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton were penalized for speeding in the pit lane.

Russell received only a five-second penalty after being recorded 0.1 km/h above the limit. However, Mercedes failed to serve that penalty correctly during a later stop. This made matters worse as it led to an additional drive-through penalty that dropped him from podium contention to outside the points.

Alpine’s request hinged on the fact that Formula One Management seemed to use inaccurate measurements in the pit-lane timing zone. The FIA accepted this and immediately rectified the error by removing Gasly’s penalties and restoring his podium finish in Monaco.

Mercedes now argues that this acceptance of the error by the FIA and the subsequent reversal in itself constitute new and significant evidence under Article 14 of the FIA International Sporting Code.

However, with Russell, another problem arises, as he served this drive-through penalty during the race, making how the FIA sorts this issue, if they do, extremely complicated.

Reflecting upon the same, Toto Wolff admitted that the chances are slim, yet Mercedes would still push for clarity and, even more importantly, a seat at the very table at which every such decision by the FIA is taken with consideration of Russell’s request.

This incident for Russell is one among a long list of many where he was almost set to win, yet fate had other plans. Let’s take a look at some other instances below.

From Sakhir to Spa: George Russell’s Strange History of Losing Big Results Off the Track

This slew of circumstances ruining victories for George Russell isn’t a new one. Take the example of the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, where he seemed set to grab a maiden victory while substituting for Lewis Hamilton before a Mercedes pit-stop blunder and late puncture ruined his chances.

Or even the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, where Russell crossed the finish line after executing a brilliant one-stop strategy. Yet hours later, the victory was snatched from him after Mercedes was disqualified for being under the minimum weight limit.

The win was then handed over to his teammate Lewis Hamilton. An interesting fact here is that Russell became the first driver in 30 years to lose a Formula 1 victory through disqualification after winning the race.

Combined with the incident at Monaco, it shows that Russell has been suffering some misfortune through organisational rulings.

The hopes of his fans, however, are still with him, wishing that a longstanding precedent is overturned and, like Gasly, he too is provided respite in Monaco.

Read more at Motor Culture!

Written by

Uday Jakhar

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason