Track limits in the Qatar Grand Prix have been referred as “a joke” by Sergio Perez who was given three penalties during the race on Sunday. He complained about his inability to identify the white line that indicated the track’s edge.
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In accordance to possible danger associated with tyre blowouts, Turns 12 and 13 were reprofiled ahead of Saturday’s running; however, not all of his offenses actually occurred there.
Due to an incident with Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkenberg in the sprint race on Saturday, the Mexican driver changed engine components and started from the pit lane on hard tyres.
Before his first pit stop on lap 17, Perez had risen to P3, and he was working his way towards the points when he was assessed his first five-second penalty, which he had to serve at his next pit stop. Later, Perez was hit with another one for his final stop. When his race time was later hit by a third penalty, he fell from ninth to tenth in the standings.
Despite admitting he could have done a better job, Perez insisted he had made a genuine effort to avoid receiving any penalties.
“It was, for me, impossible to see,” he said. “I was taking so much margin, giving up so much lap time for it, but I still got more.
“For me it was very difficult to judge, but there were drivers who were able to do that, so I don’t think I did a good enough job in that regard.
“But I also think it was a joke what we ended up doing with the track limits. First of all, I think that it is really bad that we come up with a solution last minute to police it. Then to start giving penalties away.
“It was very frustrating, as you can imagine. A really long afternoon, and I was very disappointed that I let my team down. It was a very poor weekend overall with the incident yesterday, which made it even worse today. Plenty of things to look at, and make sure we put everything in place for the coming races,” Perez added.
Perez currently holds a 30-point gap on Lewis Hamilton in the race for P2 in the Drivers’ championship, and he is confident he is capable of holding onto it in spite of only scoring five points in the last three races.
“I have had a few bad races lately, but I think once we correct that, I should be able to re-find our form,” the Mexican driver concluded.
Photo credit: Red Bull Content Pool
