Neither team walked out of the Paris hearing with an answer. The FIA said only that “the decision will be published as soon as possible after the hearing.” The parties in the room were told to expect a judgment in two to three weeks, because of the complexity of the legal arguments in front of the four judges.

At stake is who really finished third at Monaco, and how many championship points sit next to a handful of very interested names.

Why the Monaco result is contested

Pierre Gasly’s Alpine crossed the line third on 7 June. Two five-second pit lane speeding penalties, added after the flag, dropped him to seventh and promoted Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar to the podium.

Five days later, on 12 June, the stewards rescinded both penalties. Alpine had shown that the pit lane length used by race control had been measured incorrectly, an error The Race put at 77cm. Hadjar handed the trophy back and Gasly’s third place was reinstated.

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The complication is that Oscar Piastri, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton had already served their pit lane speeding penalties inside the race itself. Once served, those penalties cannot be appealed. Gasly’s was still a time penalty added at the end, so it could be. McLaren and Red Bull lodged their appeals on 16 June, and the hearing was finally held on Tuesday.

McLaren’s “double intent”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella framed the appeal as having two parts when he spoke to reporters after the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday.

“We go to the hearing at the International Court of Appeal with a double intent.”

“The first intent is more general than the interest of McLaren. We think that the process that happened after the race in Monaco needs to be reviewed because from fairness for all competitors, the fact that the penalty was removed introduces some significant elements of concern.”

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“The second aspect is the interest of McLaren ourselves. We were also materially penalised for having served a penalty that is not appealable and this cost us points in the championship.”

Red Bull’s stake is more straightforward: they want Hadjar’s third place back.

The championship picture

Kimi Antonelli leads the 2026 drivers’ standings on 242 points, from Mercedes teammate George Russell and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton on 183 apiece. Lando Norris is fourth on 159, Charles Leclerc fifth on 155, and Piastri seventh on 104. Max Verstappen sits sixth on 112.

A ruling in the teams’ favour would not shift the top of the standings. In the Monaco race classification itself it would move Hadjar from fourth back to third, Piastri from fifth to fourth, and strip Gasly of his podium points. For McLaren, chasing Antonelli, Russell and Hamilton, a handful of recovered points is not nothing.

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When the verdict lands

The hearing at 8 place de la Concorde was held behind closed doors “for confidentiality reasons,” with representatives from Alpine, McLaren, Red Bull and the FIA in the room. The next race, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, runs on 6 September, well inside the two-to-three-week window the parties were quoted, meaning cars are likely to be back on track before the judgment lands.

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