Pierre Gasly has been reinstated to third position in the Monaco Grand Prix after the Alpine Formula 1 team successfully had his pitlane speeding penalties overturned.

The unusual decision was made after it emerged an error from Formula One Management was responsible for several drivers including Gasly being given pitlane speeding penalties in the race.

It has been determined that there was "a significant delta in the distance used to calculate the speed and distance which could be driven...and which appears to have been driven".

A post-event LIDAR scan revealed that the shortest distance between the timing loops where all speeding offences occurred during the race was 77cm shorter than what had been used to set-up the timing loop zones.

This theoretical shortest distance could not have been covered exactly in reality due to the width of the cars. However, a car travelling at 60km/h through the timing loops in question would have completed around 2670cm - still shorter than the distance FOM used in setting up the loops.

As such the stewards have decided Gasly was wrongly penalised and both his five-second penalties have been rescinded.

It means Isack Hadjar has lost his first Red Bull podium, as he was promoted to third by Gasly's penalties at the flag and celebrated on the rostrum after the grand prix.

What is unclear is how other drivers and teams who got penalties for speeding in the pitlane will react. The stewards acknowledged it was unfortunate that others suffered breaches that were potentially not genuine but Alpine was the only team to challenge the penalties, and the impact they had on the result.

It pursued the right of review process rather than the conventional route of challenging a stewards’ decision because time penalties cannot be appealed.

Alpine won the right to have the penalties reviewed because of an admission from FOM that it had measured the distance of the pitlane inaccurately - a critical error because for the FIA to police the pitlane speeds they measure the time taken for a car to pass between timing loops in the pitlane.

The curved nature of the Monaco pitlane at entry and through the fast lane means drivers cut the road in a couple of places, and the measured distance being incorrect meant some of these shortcuts impacted the speed calculation enough to exceed 60.0km/h.

Gasly's penalties were for going 0.1km/h and 0.4km/h over the limit, while several others committed a 0.1km/h breach including Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri and George Russell.

Hamilton and Piastri served their penalties in the grand prix, which had an impact on their races and Piastri would have finished ahead of Gasly in the first place.

Russell got an even bigger penalty as Mercedes did not serve his five-second penalty correctly at a pitstop and so he was awarded a drivethrough. Without that, he would have finished third on the road.

As those penalties were served in the race, there is no way to address them being awarded incorrectly.

This was established last year when Carlos Sainz had a Zandvoort penalty 'rescinded' for a collision with Liam Lawson collision but he was not credited with the time back because he had served the penalty in-race.

Gasly's total 10-second time penalty was added at the end of a normal, classified finish.

This outcome could therefore encourage other teams in the future not to serve penalties in the races whenever possible, and challenge decisions in the hope it could be later rescinded through a review process when the appeal route is closed off.