Getting fined 100 euros is usually bad news, but sometimes it can also be an opportunity. Tell that to Fernando Alonso in Monaco. The Asturian was slapped with 100 euros for exceeding the pit-lane speed limit on Friday, but he was convinced he hadn’t done anything wrong. He studied what had happened and ended up turning it to his advantage.
Alonso discovered that the problem wasn’t a miscalibrated sector radar that Formula 1 uses to measure speed in the pits. The fault was that he cut the exit of the pits, shaving meters. Alonso kept the secret to himself; seven drivers fell into the trap on Sunday during the race, and that gave the Spaniard his first point of the season.
The pit-lane sector radar wasn’t catching the fastest, but those who cut corners
Many were left puzzled watching the Monaco Grand Prix. Up to seven times the FIA sanctioned drivers for breaking the pit-lane speed limit during their pit stops. It happened to Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri, Isack Hadjar, Franco Colapinto, George Russell and Pierre Gasly twice.
No one seemed to understand what was going on, but there was someone who did: Fernando Alonso. The Spanish driver had already paid a 100-euro fine on Friday because the radar caught him at 60.5 km/h in the pit lane, when the limit is 60 km/h. So he learned from his mistakes, studied what he had done wrong, and waited patiently for his rivals to fall into the trap on Sunday.
No, Alonso hadn’t exceeded 60 km/h at any moment. Nor had his rivals. The trick was that Formula 1 measures speeds in the pits with a track radar. In other words, you have to cover X meters in at least X time going at 60 km/h or slower. If the time is less than allowed, it means you went faster.
The problem was that at Monaco’s pit exit there is a type of chicane drawn on the track with white lines. The FIA’s track radar counted that chicane, but many drivers were choosing to go straight to save a few thousandths of a second, missing a small detail: they were covering fewer meters than the radar expects.
So when leaving the pit lane, the track radar triggered even though they hadn’t exceeded 60 km/h at any moment. They had completed the pit-lane stretch in less time than allowed. The penalties continued, with Gasly receiving a double sanction, costing him a podium that would have been gold for Alpine.
And so Alonso gained positions with the worst car on the grid thanks to his rivals’ penalties to end up with a single point in that poor Aston Martin. The old adage holds: the devil knows more because he’s old than because he’s a devil.
Images | Aston Martin
