As I spent plenty of years in Formula 1 with smaller teams who had to seize on every opportunity to put one over the big boys, something that we managed to do on a number of occasions in the Jordan and Stewart days, I know exactly how I'd feel learning about the Formula One Management timekeeping error that led to erroneous pitlane speeding penalties being given in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Pierre Gasly and Alpine may have at least got their podium back, but that doesn't fix everything or let everyone off the hook for what went wrong.

My best example of injustice in a decision was when at Jordan we won the race on-the-road in Brazil in 2003. Thirty seconds later, the timing changed and said we were second. Yes, we got the win back and the winner's trophy two weeks later, but Giancarlo Fisichella missed out on standing on the top step of the podium and we the team missed out on getting the constructors' winning trophy on that same podium.

Those moments for a small team can never be replaced. Alpine hasn't had its moment back, even if it's at least got the result and the points.

A podium is a special thing for a team like Alpine, and to be initially denied that because of such a rudimentary mistake that should not happen in F1 today, with all the technology and measurement tools that are available, having earned a decent points-scoring position, would hit hard.

These are the days that you race for and they don't come around often. If you miss the opportunity through your own mistakes, as you could say Audi did in Monaco after failing to score a point in a car that had the pace to be in the top 10 on merit, that hurts. But if something as stupid as these speeding penalties costs you then I can tell you I'd be having some very strong words with anyone involved in that mistake.

As Gasly said on Thursday, it will take you "a few days to calm down" after being denied your champagne moment on the Monaco podium.

"I know at the moment, with the package I have, which is pretty much where I've been my entire career, the point for me is to put myself in situations where I can seize these opportunities when they come up," said Gasly.

"In terms of performance, we've executed everything perfectly with the team. Great qualifying, great starts. I managed to pass Lando [Norris] at the first start. I managed to pass Isack [Hadjar] at the second start. So in terms of performance, we can be very proud of what we've achieved during that weekend."

The problem is that there's no way to fix this completely if there's a screw-up. In this case, FOM is responsible for the timekeeping and that's what the FIA stewards rely on, but you can't undo everything that happened to make it right. Even though Gasly has been reinstated to third place by wiping out the 10-second penalty that bumped him from third on-the-road to seventh, which he and the team deserve, what about everybody else who served penalties that can't be taken back?

Without the initial pitlane speeding penalty, George Russell would never have had to serve that drivethrough and would therefore have finished third or fourth and Oscar Piastri wouldn't have lost a place to Gasly under the safety car. The situation of those cars shows you can't undo such mistakes because it's impossible to rearrange the results or remove penalties in a way that restores what should have happened. The best I can come up with for the 'fair' top 10 is something like this:

1 Antonelli
2 Hamilton
3 Russell
4 Hadjar
5 Piastri
6 Gasly
7 Lawson
8 Lindblad
9 Albon
10 Ocon

But even then, there are problems. Gasly jumped Isack Hadjar at the restart but Piastri didn't, but as Gasly was only ahead of Piastri because of the penalty the McLaren driver served under the safety car you can't rearrange those drivers satisfactorily. And if you say the restart never happened and Russell therefore didn't jump Hadjar, then what about the impact of other order changes at the restart?

What's more, that result shows that without the penalties for others, Gasly would potentially have finished closer to the seventh place he was eventually credited with than the third that he lost. And remember, on that decision there was a swing in favour of Racing Bulls, which pocketed 18 points and almost doubled its points total for the season.

And it's not just about the smaller teams; how will Russell feel about what happened if he loses the world championship by a few points having been incorrectly penalised for speeding, without which he would not have had the resulting drivethrough?

This just illustrates how you can't undo history and injustice. The only way to do that is to get ahead of it and not make the mistake in the first place. Yes, you can say 17 drivers weren't penalised and therefore perhaps they spotted the problem earlier and adapted, as there were speeding penalties earlier in the weekend, but it's embarrassing for F1 that this happened.

This isn't a controversial video assistant referee call at the world cup when you are looking at multiple moving parts, it's measuring accurately the length of the pitlane. That's something anyone should be able to do and there should be failsafes to prevent it going wrong. And why wasn't this error spotted during the two days before the race? And yes, while FOM supplies the timekeeping, the FIA as the regulator is also part of this and should be on the lookout for such blunders.

We all make mistakes, but the point of a big organisation with all the money that F1 is raking in is that you have multiple people responsible and systems in place to prevent that. If you don't even know how long your speed-controlled part of the pitlane is, then how can you expect the tougher decisions to be got right?