Sergio Perez’s exhilaration after crossing the finish line in P1 at the end of a tough Singapore Grand Prix was kept in check by a post-race inquest into an alleged safety car violation – with Perez eventually a five-second -Penalty received that meant he held on to his fourth career win.
Perez was actually investigated for two incidents in which he failed to stay within 10 car lengths of the safety car during two yellow periods. However, the Mexican rider received a reprimand for the first of these, which came on lap 10 after Zhou Guanyu and Nicholas Latifi made contact – Perez claimed his brakes and tires weren’t warm enough in the damp conditions to keep up with the safety -Car.
READ MORE: Perez hails ‘best performance’ in F1 at Singapore Grand Prix as he shares his take on the safety car investigation
However, a five-second penalty and two penalty points on his license were then imposed on Perez for the second offence, with the stewards ruling: “Article 55.10 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations requires the leader to remain within 10 car lengths of the.” safety cars deployed once until the lights go out.
“Car 11 [Perez] was the leading car on lap 36 during the second safety car period of the race [brought out when Yuki Tsunoda hit the wall]. It was admitted that while the safety car lights were still on, PER did not stay within 10 car lengths of the safety car between Turn 13 and Turn 14.
Perez held onto his #4 career win
“This was despite the fact that the race director had warned the team that PER was not complying with the requirement of less than 10 car lengths between turns 9 and 10. The team relayed this warning to PER.
“We sued PER for violating the same rule during the first safety car deployment during the race.
“As this was PER’s second violation of Article 55.10 during the race and followed an explicit warning from the Race Director, we have decided to impose a five-second time penalty on PER.”
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However, in the closing stages of the abridged Singapore Grand Prix, Perez was told by Red Bull that he was under investigation for the violation and encouraged by his race engineer, Hugh Bird, to ‘disappear’ down the road from pursuer Charles Leclerc.
And when Leclerc finally crossed the line 7.595s behind Perez, the Mexican did enough to hold onto his fourth career win as Leclerc and Carlos Sainz completed the podium.
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