Sergio Perez kept his third place in the French Grand Prix after he was cleared by the race stewards for overtaking off-track.
The Red Bull driver completed the podium after a late pass on Mercedes’ Bottas, who was struggling with much older tyres.
However the pass was noted for investigation by the stewards after the Mexican went off-track at the Signes right-hander, but it was later decided that no penalty applied because Perez didn’t gain a “lasting advantage”.
“The Stewards determined that Perez had fully completed the pass on Bottas by the time he left the track at Turn 10,” the stewards noted in their explanation. “This made the fact that he left the track subsequently as a standard ‘track limits’ question.
“The Stewards determined that Perez lost sufficient ground in the following turn that he could not be deemed to have ‘gained a lasting advantage’.”
Perez went with the alternate strategy by staying out longer than his rivals, giving him fresher tyres at the end of the race to attack. On lap 49 of 53 he passed Bottas and was catching Lewis Hamilton, but ran out of laps to mount a challenge for second place.
His Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen went on to win the race, further extending their Constructors’ Championship lead.
