Sergio Perez admits that he is concerned with the continued stewarding inconsistencies seen in Formula 1 amid the decision to penalise Fernando Alonso in Australia.
The stewards elected to hand Alonso a 20-second time drop for his involvement in the final-lap incident at Albert Park that saw George Russell crash out at Turn Six.
Their report documented that the Spaniard had slowed “more than 100m earlier” than he had prior to that lap along with also downshifting at a point he hadn’t beforehand.
Although Perez agreed with the decision to penalise Alonso, the Red Bull driver is worried that it won’t be used as a precedent going forward to punish similar incidences.
The Mexican highlighted his three-place grid drop for impeding Nico Hulkenberg in Q1 and other situations that went unpunished to enhance his claim about irregularities.
“My take is that it was definitely a bit too much over the limit,” Perez said regarding Alonso’s defensive tactic against Russell. “I’d say a bit unnecessary to do so.
“But my biggest fear is that we might see this incident again this weekend, or next weekend, and probably nothing will happen. That’s my biggest fear.
“Because we’ve been struggling a lot to keep the consistency within the penalties.
“For example, in Jeddah there was a block at 300 kph, two cars, [Oliver] Bearman and [Alex] Albon, no penalty. I blocked Hulkenberg, he lost half a tenth. He goes faster on the lap after, I get three places.
“I think the biggest talking point should be consistency. If incidents like this are going to be penalised, they have to be penalised every single weekend.
“Because as a driver it hurts a lot when you work your ass off and you see this inconsistency.”
Asked whether it would be beneficial to have a permanent steward in place, Perez replied: “Definitely.
“I think either permanent stewards or more communication within the FIA. To keep improving race after race to have this consistency.
“Because it cannot be that you have, for example, what I had last weekend. I blocked Hulkenberg, he lost half a tenth, he went quicker the lap after, and the damage was minimal. And then you have [Valtteri] Bottas at 300 kph, two cars in a very unsafe place, and no penalties. So we need that improvement and that regularity within the FIA.”
It has been touted that one downside to implementing a permanent steward was that an individual could have a gripe against a driver and continue to penalise them.
When that was put to him to explain the reasons behind the current setup in place, Perez reiterated: “It feels like there is a lot of disconnection weekend to weekend.
“When there is a change of stewards, it feels like there is no continuity of what has happened in the last 10 races, for example.
“That’s my point of view, there is no regularity, there is no continuity of facts.”
Asked if it would be better to deal with such risks to introduce that consistent decision-making, he added: “More than the regularity, I think the continuity, the communication.
“It’s like with the car setup, if you are not learning race by race what works for your car, you are never going to find the right setup.
“So it’s the same with the stewards; if they are not communicating weekend after weekend the incidents that have happened and so on, I find it really hard to find the right compromise.”
