The International Court of Appeal has moved to defend its own house.
Days after Flavio Briatore lit the fuse with an incendiary attack on the integrity of the Monaco Grand Prix appeal panel, motorsport’s highest judicial body issued a rare, pointed statement insisting its judges were properly appointed and fully independent.
Briatore’s blast over Gasly ruling
The row traces back to Monaco, and to Pierre Gasly’s rollercoaster weekend. The Alpine driver was initially stripped of a podium after being hit with penalties for pitlane speeding, one of several drivers incorrectly sanctioned in the chaos of the principality.
Alpine launched a right of review and won. Gasly’s penalties were rescinded, his result restored. Others, though, were not so fortunate. Because rival drivers had already served their penalties in-race, they could not be undone, a discrepancy that angered McLaren and Red Bull, who took the matter to the International Court of Appeal.
The ICA sided with the appellants and reinstated Gasly’s penalties, a brutal reversal for the Frenchman and his team.
Briatore, never one to leave a grenade unthrown, escalated the dispute at the Italian Grand Prix. In a fiery press conference appearance, Alpine’s top boss questioned the impartiality of the appeal panel, singling out one judge, Filippo Marchino, over alleged links to McLaren.
The Marchino question
Marchino’s name quickly became the flashpoint. He previously served as CEO of the One Drop Foundation, a charity created by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte. During that time, the foundation received several McLaren road cars from the late Mansour Ojjeh, then a McLaren shareholder, to be auctioned for fundraising.
Briatore also pointed to a 2018 event in Beverley Hills, organised by McLaren Special Operations, where Marchino appeared as a speaker. That event had no direct connection to the Formula 1 team, but in Briatore’s eyes, it formed part of a pattern that called the judge’s neutrality into question.
The implication was clear: a judge with any past association with McLaren should never have been allowed to sit in judgment on a case involving the team.
ICA hits back
The International Court of Appeal, which operates independently of the FIA while remaining its top judicial authority in motorsport matters, responded with a detailed defence of its procedures and of the panel that heard the McLaren and Red Bull appeal.
“The FIA Courts are aware of public comments questioning the independence and impartiality of the judges of the panel that decided Case ICA-2026-06-07-08-09,” the ICA said, directly addressing the storm.
It stressed that the appointment and participation of judges in the Monaco appeal “like for any other case, were conducted in accordance with the applicable FIA judicial procedures and usual practice”, which it said are based on high international standards, explicitly citing the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration.
The court underlined how its judges are chosen and monitored. All are elected by FIA General Assemblies, with some proposed by a group of at least five F1 teams, in line with FIA statutes. Every judge is bound by independence and confidentiality rules under the FIA Judicial and Disciplinary Rules, must file annual disclosures of interests with the FIA compliance officer, and must sign a specific declaration of independence for each individual case, tailored to the issues and the parties involved. That declaration is shared with those parties.
No objections at the time
One of the ICA’s most pointed rebuttals came on process. If anyone had doubts about the panel, the court said, they had their chance.
“At both the beginning and conclusion of the hearing, the parties were invited to raise any issue concerning the proceedings or the composition of the court. None did so,” the statement read.
“No objection was raised during the hearing concerning the manner in which the court questioned the witness or conducted the proceedings.”
In other words: the time to challenge the line-up was before, or during, the hearing – not after an unfavourable verdict.
Diversity as a pillar
The ICA also used the moment to explain why it deliberately assembles panels from a broad range of backgrounds.
It “emphasises the importance of constituting panels with judges from different cultural and geographical backgrounds,” arguing that this mix brings a diversity of legal traditions, perspectives and approaches. That, it said, strengthens fairness, independence, credibility and access to a fair trial.
The court acknowledged that its decisions will always be open to debate in terms of legal interpretation. That, it said, is “fair and accepted by all the judges.” But it stood firmly behind both the Monaco appeal process and the people who oversaw it, declaring itself “confident in the soundness of the proceedings and the integrity of the judges.”
For all the noise around Gasly’s lost podium and Briatore’s accusations, the message from the ICA was unmistakable: the system, as far as it is concerned, worked exactly as designed – and the judges will not be the ones backing away.
