The Monaco Grand Prix stewards explained why George Russell received a harsher penalty than usual for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
They issued the Mercedes driver a drive-through penalty for cutting across the Nouvelle chicane in order to overtaking Alexander Albon through the race. The standard penalty for this is 10 seconds, though it can be mitigated to five0.
The stewards said they gave Russell a harsher penalty because they believe his move was deliberate. They justified this view by citing his radio message to race engineer Marcus Dudley in which he said he would “take the penalty”.
“Car 63 [Russell] left the track at turn 10 and overtook car 23 [Albon],” the stewards noted. “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.”
The stewards said drivers had been warned not to gain positions at the corner by cutting across the track.
“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.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“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.”
Afterwards Russell pointed out that even with a harsher drive-through penalty he was able to finish higher than he would have done had he stayed behind Albon. “It’s a bit of a flawed system,” he told Sky.
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
2025 Monaco Grand Prix
- F1 must “take a closer look” at Russell’s penalty for deliberate chicane cut – Wheatley
- ‘Have I been dead slow the whole race?’ Full radio from Hamilton’s frustrating Monaco GP
- 2025 Monaco Grand Prix weekend F1 driver ratings
- Winning Monaco GP meant less than ‘getting my groove back’ in qualifying did – Norris
- ‘Successful’ or ‘wrong’? Team bosses differ over F1’s Monaco rule experiment