Mercedes issue statement after withdrawing Monaco GP Right of Review

Mercedes has issued a statement confirming that "after subsequent collaborative discussioi with the FIA and F1," it has decided to withdraw its Monaco Grand Prix Right of Review.

The team signalled its intention to lodge the RoR after the stewards' decision to rescind Pierre Gasly's two five-second pit-lane speeding penalties in the Monaco GP on June 7th, thus promoting him back to third.

This was done after it was found during the process that a timing loop in the pit-lane was 77cm shorter than expected, meaning a driver could have gone over the 60kph limit through the loops, with pit-lane speed calculated as an average along its distance, but never actually exceeded 60kph.

Of the penalties handed out, five of the six were for drivers going at 60.1kph, with Mercedes' George Russell and McLaren's Oscar Piastri also hit with the sanction - which in Russell's case was converted to a drive-through penalty, for which he dropped to 12th in the final results after failing to serve his five-seconds at a pit-stop. 

However, crucially, Gasly did not serve his penalties in-race and the 10-seconds total time was added to his elapsed race time, meaning his penalties were posible to be cancelled, but as Russell and Piastri had already served theirs, no mechanism exists in the rulebook to cancel the effects of a penalty which has been served.

Without his penalty, Piastri would have finished third on the road, but before pitting after the red flag restart, Russell was running third.

Both McLaren and Red Bull, whose Isack Hadjar lost third place after Gasly was reinstated, are seeking a Right of Review into this decision, but Mercedes has now declared that it will no longer be seeking the process.

"We can confirm that we have withdrawn our Right of Review submission relating to the penalties received and served by George Russell during the Monaco Grand Prix," read a team statement. 
 
"Following the decision to rescind Pierre Gasly’s time penalty, it was important for us to explore all available options to address the impact of George’s pitlane speeding penalty on his race result.
 
"We had a limited time window in which to apply for the Right of Review during the race weekend in Barcelona, and did so in order to reserve our position in this regard.

"Our subsequent collaborative discussion with FIA and Formula One has shown their determination to review the unique circumstances arising from the Monaco Grand Prix and to proactively address the factors that caused them.

"In the face of this clear determination, we have concluded that further pursuit of our Right of Review application will not serve our team or the sport and thus we have withdrawn our submission."