Mercedes has backed down in its battle over the Monaco Grand Prix, pulling its right-of-review petition with barely 48 hours to spare before it was due to be argued.
The team had secured a virtual hearing for 8am on Saturday to contest the wreckage of a messy weekend in the principality. By Thursday night, the FIA stewards confirmed the retreat. "The Stewards have been informed by Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team that they are withdrawing the petition for review in respect of the decisions of the stewards of the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix, breach of Article B1.6.3a of the FIA F1 Regulations in relation to Car 63," their statement said.
The root of it is one faulty measurement and two opposite results. Formula One Management, which operates the timing system that polices pit-lane speed, mismeasured the gap between two sensors, setting off a string of speeding penalties. George Russell was swept up in it, penalised for pit-lane speeding, then hit with a drive-through when Mercedes did not serve the first penalty properly, leaving him 12th and out of the points.
Pierre Gasly's story went the opposite way. Alpine contested his post-race penalties using data taken straight from the car, showing he never broke the 60km/h limit. The stewards agreed, wiped two five-second penalties and restored Gasly to third, the place he had crossed the line. As Crash.net explained, the deciding factor was when the penalties applied: Gasly's came after the race, Russell's during it, and the stewards have no authority to reverse a penalty already served mid-race.
Mercedes never sounded sure of itself. Speaking over the Barcelona weekend, Toto Wolff cast the review as a matter of presence rather than expectation. "We've asked for a right of review, because you just simply want to sit on the table when decisions are being made," he said, before conceding: "I still think it's a long shot."
The bigger concern, raised by Autosport, is the precedent. By trusting Alpine's telemetry over the official timing and effectively shelving Gasly's penalties, the stewards risk opening what the outlet called a Pandora's box, one where any team that can prove a measurement error sidesteps a sanction its rivals simply accept. That inconsistency, more than Russell's lost points, is what unsettles the governing body.
Mercedes stepping aside does not end it. McLaren and Red Bull, both stung when Gasly's podium was handed back, are carrying on and have filed notifications of appeal with the FIA's International Court of Appeal. The Monaco result, three races old and already rewritten once, is bound for another hearing, even without the team that protested loudest.
