Steiner slams FIA over Gasly Monaco podium reversal

Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has labeled the FIA’s decision to restore Pierre Gasly’s Monaco Grand Prix podium a “debacle,” arguing that the post-race reversal created a bigger consistency problem because other drivers who served similar pit-lane speeding penalties cannot now be compensated.

Gasly originally finished third in Monaco, but a pit-lane speeding penalty that had not been served during the race was converted into added time after the finish, dropping the Alpine driver to seventh. Alpine then sought a review, and the FIA accepted new evidence that had not been available to the stewards when the original decision was made, leading to Gasly being reinstated to P3.

Steiner’s objection was not centered on Gasly alone, but on the unequal effect of correcting one case after the event. Speaking on The Red Flags Podcast, he said the podium “should not have been restored” because “if you restore his podium, you also need to change the others, and that can no longer be done.” He called the Monaco handling “a complete chaos” and “a Debakel.”

He said the problem began earlier, with incorrect information about the pit-lane speed measurement line or the line being in the wrong place. But Steiner argued that even if that initial error was real, the later fix still left the FIA in an impossible position because other drivers had already served their penalties during the race and had “no possibility” to recover the damage.

Steiner added that he would have liked to see Gasly on the podium, but only within the framework of the rules. “He should be there because he achieved it the right way, not because of something the rules do not provide for or because someone made a mistake measuring a section of the track,” he said, adding that “you cannot fix these situations properly after the problem happens.”

For Steiner, that is the real issue Monaco exposed: not only whether Gasly’s individual case was corrected, but whether Formula 1 can preserve equal treatment when one obvious error is reversed after the race while comparable cases from the same grand prix remain untouched.