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The start of the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix weekend was dominated by the fallout over Pierre Gasly’s penalty at the previous race in Monaco.
Gasly lost a podium in Monte Carlo after pit-lane speeding penalties were applied, but Alpine, adamant that he had been under the limit, appealed.
Much to the surprise of the paddock – particularly the top teams who were bumped down a place – the appeal was a success and Gasly was reinstated to third, pending further protests.
The FIA rescinds Pierre Gasly’s penalties and he gets P3 in the Monaco Grand Prix – Is this the right outcome?
Why F1 fans should be concerned by Kimi Antonelli’s delayed track limits penalty
The Gasly story kept running throughout the weekend and still hasn’t been resolved. Lewis Hamilton’s famous win in Sunday’s race has bumped it down the news agenda.
But it seems nobody is talking about another mistake the stewards made during Sunday’s race. Kimi Antonelli was given a five-second track limits penalty two hours after the chequered flag.
Antonelli retired late on due to a failure – another reason the delayed verdict hasn’t received much coverage.
While it won’t cause any further damage to his championship chances, F1’s in-race officials got lucky.
Your championship standings after the Barcelona GP. How worried should Kimi Antonelli be about Lewis Hamilton?
Had Antonelli’s penalty been applied during the race – as it should have been given the black-and-white nature of the offence – it would have changed the dynamics of his battle with teammate George Russell.
The FIA document doesn’t specify the exact timing of Antonelli’s transgressions, so it’s unclear whether he could have served the penalty in the pit lane if it had been issued in a timely manner. Again, that would have altered the race outlook significantly.
Peter Bonnington warned Antonelli multiple times during the race that he was on his final strike, while McLaren and Lando Norris clearly spotted numerous infringements during their pursuit of the Italian.
However, the FIA acknowledged that they didn’t give Antonelli the black and white flag – effectively his last warning – until he had already exceeded the penalty threshold. One of his breaches wasn’t detected until afterwards.
In short, this was a mess, both in terms of detection and application. The FIA keep finding themselves in scenarios where objective rules are not being correctly enforced, and it risks affecting the integrity of the races.
Because Antonelli retired anyway, it will be a footnote when it could easily have been another fiasco.
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