The spate of speeding penalties that impacted several drivers in Formula 1’s Monaco Grand Prix and cost Pierre Gasly a podium were likely a result of drivers effectively cutting the pitlane once they were in it.
Five drivers including second-place runner Lewis Hamilton and championship contender George Russell were awarded five-second time penalties for speeding in the pitlane.
Gasly, Oscar Piastri and Franco Colapinto were the other three drivers, with Gasly even picking up a second penalty for speeding again when running through the pitlane behind the safety car following a crash for Lance Stroll at the final corner.
It came after four drivers picked up penalties in practice for speeding by 0.5km/h or less: Russell again, but also Kimi Antonelli, Alex Albon and Fernando Alonso.
Albon was warned late in the grand prix that several drivers were getting penalties and it was related to “cutting the line around the Cadillac area”.
Cadillac is positioned at the end of the pitlane, which is slightly more open this year than when it was funnelled more tightly by barriers on both sides.
This seems to have invited drivers to cut the white line that denotes the fast lane – which is done at both ends of the pits here.
It is allowed from a regulatory perspective, but can create an unusual problem: the speed of a car in the pitlane in F1 is measured using electronic timing loops and the FIA transponders, rather than through a camera or a gun.
The car will pass over multiple loops in the pitlane and then the system calculates its speed based on the time taken to travel that distance.
As the fast lane is used to calculate the pitlane distance, even a marginally too aggressive cut of the line would shorten it.
So a car travelling at exactly 60km/h would complete the distance slightly too quickly for how it should be measured, and be very fractionally over the speed limit – hence the tiny margins seen in practice.
It is understood that this was discussed between teams and the FIA during the weekend and some drivers were even warned before the race to be careful of their positioning down the pitlane.
In the race, the penalties had a significant impact on the order in the top 10 – particularly on Russell, who was running fourth but failed to serve his penalty correctly at a double-stacked Mercedes stop under the safety car, and therefore was awarded a drivethrough penalty.
He served this after a late restart bunched the field up so finished down in 13th.
Gasly’s brace of penalties also badly hurt him as the Alpine driver finished third on the road but lost his podium finish as an additional 10 seconds dropped him to seventh.
Gasly, who was near-disconsolate post race, was 0.1km/h and 0.4km/h over the 60km/h limit on his two offences.
