Sergio Perez will be demoted to P13 on the starting grid for the F1 Sprint after having all of his Q3 lap times deleted.
At the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, there is a clampdown on track limits at the Red Bull Ring, with times deleted if a driver completes a lap while crossing the white line that marks the edge of the circuit.
Several lap times were deleted during free practice and qualifying on Friday.
During his final hot lap in Q2, Perez left the track at Turn 8, but the incident wasn’t noted until after the start of Q3.
The Stewards stated that “this is a consequence of having many situations to examine in each session”, and that Red Bull admitted that the “video was clear and there is no doubt of the breach”.
Red Bull argued that leaving the track at the corner does not come with an advantage of gaining lap time, and presented evidence to back its claims.
However the Stewards considered that Perez’s off was not a case of “gaining a lasting advantage”, but rather was “leaving the track without a justifiable reason”, which is another part of the same rule that is in place this weekend.
Perez jumped from 12th in the order, a position in the elimination zone, to sixth.
Had Perez’s lap time been deleted prior to the start of Q3, Pierre Gasly would’ve taken part in the session.
The Stewards’ statement continued: “This situation, where a driver moves through to a subsequent round of qualifying, and then is identified as having committed a track limits breach, does not happen regularly and certainly not recently.
“Thus the Stewards have to examine this as a new situation. The team made the point that they took both risk and expended resources to compete in Q3.
“The Stewards accept this point. However, in assessing a penalty after a session, this is no different than any other situation.
“The usual penalty is deleting the lap time concerned, and the stewards order the same penalty here.
“However, as a consequence, the driver would not have proceeded into Q3 and therefore, in fairness to all the other competitors, the stewards order that all the lap times for Q3 for the driver also are deleted.”
Discussion about this post