Mercedes has walked away from its fight over the Monaco Grand Prix result, withdrawing a right-of-review petition less than 48 hours before it was due to be heard.
The team had been granted a virtual hearing, set for 8am on Saturday, to challenge the fallout from a chaotic Monaco weekend. On Thursday evening the FIA stewards confirmed the climbdown. "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," the statement read.
At the heart of it is a measurement error and two very different outcomes. Formula One Management, which runs the timing system used to police the pit lane, got the distance between two sensors wrong, triggering a wave of speeding penalties. George Russell was among those caught: he served a penalty for pit-lane speeding and then collected a drive-through after Mercedes failed to serve the first sanction correctly, dropping him to 12th and out of the points.
Pierre Gasly's case ran the other way. Alpine challenged his post-race penalties, showing through data pulled directly from the car that the Frenchman never exceeded the 60km/h limit. The stewards accepted it, rescinded two five-second penalties and reinstated Gasly to third, the position he had taken on the road. As Crash.net set out, the decisive distinction was timing: Gasly's penalties were applied after the race, while Russell's were served during it, and the stewards have no power to undo penalties already served mid-race.
Mercedes never sounded confident. Speaking during the Barcelona weekend, team principal Toto Wolff framed the review as a matter of being in the room rather than a likely win. "We've asked for a right of review, because you just simply want to sit on the table when decisions are being made," Wolff said. He was candid about the odds: "I still think it's a long shot."
The deeper worry, flagged by Autosport, is precedent. By accepting Alpine's data over the official timing and effectively suspending Gasly's penalties, the stewards may have opened what the outlet called a Pandora's box, where teams able to demonstrate a measurement error could escape sanctions that rivals serve without question. That uneven treatment, more than Russell's lost points, is what made the case awkward for the governing body.
Mercedes' retreat does not close the matter. McLaren and Red Bull, who also lost out when Gasly's podium was restored, are pressing ahead and have lodged notifications of appeal with the FIA's International Court of Appeal. The Monaco result, three races old and already rewritten once, is heading for another courtroom even without the team that shouted loudest about it.
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*Originally published on [Newsformula One](https://newsformula.one/article/mercedes-drops-monaco-review-as-gasly-appeal-heads-to-court). Visit for full coverage.*