25-05-2025
F1 stewards issue statement as George Russell gets more severe Monaco GP penalty
George Russell was slapped with a drive-through penalty for cutting a chicane to overtake Alex Albon during the Monaco Grand Prix out of frustration at their tactics
The stewards have explained why George Russell was slapped with a tougher penalty than usual for his antics during the Monaco Grand Prix. The Brit was given a drive-through penalty during the race after he overtook Alex Albon by cutting the Nouvelle Chicane.
The new two-stop pit rules for this race led to a situation where teams were using the narrow track to back up other cars. The idea was to give their team-mates the room to pit without losing a place and it worked beautifully for some teams.
Racing Bulls made the most of it to secure sixth and eighth. And Williams also pulled it off to make sure that they too secured a double-points finish, with Albon backing a train of drivers up so that Carlos Sain z could pit without losing ground.
That infuriated Russell who lost patience and cut the chicane, accusing Albon of driving "erratically". And when he was told by his Mercedes race engineer Marcus Dudley to give the place back, he refused and said he would rather take the penalty that he knew was coming his way.
In the end, he might not be so glad that he did that. The stewards took a dim view of him cutting the chicane deliberately, and then also of his radio message, which led to a five or ten second time penalty becoming a drive-through which lost him around 20 seconds of time in the end.
Explaining their decision, the stewards said: "Car 63 [Russell] left the track at Turn 10 and overtook Car 23 [Albon]. He did not give that position back and maintained his track position.
"It was clear from the radio message where he said that he would 'take the penalty' that the overtake was done deliberately as he felt that he was being held up by Car 23 driving erratically.
"Anticipating that situations such as this might happen at this Monaco Grand Prix, all the teams were informed before the race by the race director (at the stewards' request) that the stewards would look carefully at a deliberate leaving of the track at Turn 10 to overtake a car or a train of slow cars.
"That communication also made it clear that the guideline penalty of 10 seconds may be insufficient for this deliberate infringement and that the penalty applied may be a greater penalty than 10 seconds. We therefore considered that Car 63's deliberate infringement warranted a drive through penalty and we so imposed."
Speaking live on Sky Sports during the race, Williams team principal James Vowles made it clear that he was unhappy that his team had been forced to use that tactic to preserve their places on track. And both drivers, Albon and Sainz, were also frustrated, the latter labelling it a "manipulation" of the result.
