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Flavio Briatore launches a scathing assault on the FIA following the decision to strip Pierre Gasly of his podium at the Monaco GP, as the Alpine boss questions the integrity of the International Court of Appeals. Confirmation arrived on Friday, September 4 that Alpine has lost third place in Monte Carlo to Isack Hadjar following a lengthy appeal process involving McLaren and Red Bull. The incident centres around a series of time penalties issued at the Circuit de Monaco as a result of the FIA making changes to their pit lane, but seemingly failing to recalibrate their equipment to compensate. As the pit lane system monitors speeding by calculating the time taken to travel from Point A to Point B instead of monitoring the speedometer itself, several drivers, including Gasly, were accused of speeding. Whilst this is normally an open-and-closed book until Alpine realised the error and officially protested the classification, with their Right of Review accepted by the FIA stewards. The team subsequently managed to quash the penalty given to their French driver and looked to have claimed a historic moment in Monaco, only for McLaren to then throw a spanner into the works. More from the Italian GP Get ready for the Italian GP with Total Motorsport’s latest Monza coverage, including Kimi Antonelli’s double power unit penalty, the full weekend schedule, Monza records and track guide, the latest weather forecast, and where to watch every session. Andrea Stella’s team protested the stewards’ decision on the grounds that some drivers had already served their penalties in the race and therefore it was not fair to overturn Gasly’s result. McLaren also argued that overturning the served penalties in terms of lap time was not viable as it was not possible to calculate penalties for Oscar Piastri or George Russell, the latter serving a second penalty that dropped him out of the points. The FIA International Court of Appeal held the hearing in August in France and issued their verdict on September after a lengthy deliberation, ultimately ruling with McLaren and re-instating the original order at the Monaco GP. The outcome moves Hajdar into third and Gasly into seventh, whilst Piastri, Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindbladall moved up a position, retrospectively impacting the standings. Alpine initially accepted the result and admitted that whilst they were disappointed they would not be pursuing any further legal action, however Briatore then launched an explosive attack as he questions the integrity of FIA after their Monaco GP decision. “I think it’s very unfair, first of all, but we accept the decision,” Briatore said to media, including Total-Motorsport.com. “What is very strange was the fourth judge in the panel, and one of the judges acted like a prosecutor. For this, [it’s] not a big problem. “The problem is, it’s very linked with the McLaren company, because we have a nice picture of this guy at the speech for the McLaren in 2018 in MSO Beverly Hills. “He made a foundation, it’s called One Drop Foundation, and McLaren gave [it] two or three McLaren cars and I think this was quite unfair [that] one of the judges was linked with a team with protesting us.” Briatore says Alpine now reviewing options after allegation Briatore singled out the judge in particular as acting like a “prosecutor” hinting he was more active in August’s hearing in France than what may usually be expected a representative of the FIA. The Italian motorsport executive claims that the judge has a working relationship with McLaren and although Alpine publicly accepted the result, Briatore hints they are now reviewing their legal options. “What is unfair is some judge was linked with the McLaren,” Briatore continued. “This is unfair [because] the judge normally [has to] be independent completely. “And this judge – the name is kind of Italian name – is American, Filippo Marchino, was very nasty during the hearing. “[He] was acting as a prosecutor and after we come down to… what is the reason why [he was] so nasty? He’s very linked with McLaren. “We were very disappointed to found out one of the judge have a very good relationship with McLaren, working relationship kind. “I think so the panel needs to be completely independent, and you don’t need somebody linked with some team, especially the team involved with us in this situation. “Now we think about what we do next.”