Sergio Perez’s Monaco Grand Prix changed after the chequered flag, and so did Cadillac’s first possible Formula 1 points finish. What looked like a P10 result for Perez was wiped out by a post-race penalty, dropping him to P15 after a 78-lap race that delivered several late adjustments to the official order.
The penalty came after stewards found that Perez’s front right wheel was outside the starting box, turning what had been a promising run into a costly afternoon for the team’s newcomer. Cadillac had appeared to be on the edge of its first point in Formula 1, only for the revised classification to take it away before the standings could settle.
The result matters now because Monaco did not just produce a winner — Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli called his race “incredible” after taking victory — it also reshaped the lower end of the points picture in real time. Perez had already been handed a drive-through penalty at the start for being out of position, after he pulled into P16 on the grid rather than P18, and then picked up a 10-second time penalty at the restart for the same issue.
That sequence left Perez fighting just to stay in the mix, and for a brief period it looked as though he had done enough to bring Cadillac onto the board. The post-race decision reversed that impression. Instead of a breakthrough result, the official record shows Perez falling back to P15, a finish that leaves Cadillac still waiting for its first points in Formula 1.
He was not the only driver whose afternoon changed under the stewards’ watch. George Russell received a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane, then a drive-through for failing to serve it correctly, before finishing P12. Nico Hulkenberg was given 10 seconds for causing a collision with Carlos Sainz, while Pierre Gasly crossed the line in P3 for Alpine before two five-second pit-lane-speeding penalties dropped him to P7.
Alpine has already asked the FIA for a Right of Review over Gasly’s penalties, adding another layer to a race that kept shifting after the finish. Lewis Hamilton kept his P2 after the stewards found no further action was necessary in an alleged Safety Car infringement, despite a five-second penalty for pit-lane speeding, and Franco Colapinto also kept moving after serving a five-second penalty and escaping further punishment over an alleged collision with Sainz.
For Perez, the sting is not just the lost positions but the timing. He had been one result away from giving Cadillac a headline-making first point, and the stewards took it away after the race was over. Unless the penalty is challenged and changed, Monaco will be remembered less as a breakthrough than as the day Cadillac’s first Formula 1 score slipped through Perez’s fingers.
