Perez reached the final qualifying session at the Red Bull Ring with his final Q2 lap after his initial time was erased when he exceeded the track’s limits.
But after the session it became clear that Perez appeared to have breached track restrictions on the final lap as well, leading to an investigation by the stewards.
Perez qualified fourth for Red Bull but will now drop to 13th on the grid after he was found to have exceeded track limits on his Q2 lap, resulting in all of his Q3 times being erased and the most -his good lap time in Q2.
The stewards admitted that he was “not identified until now before the start of Q3”, meaning he was involved in Q3 because there were “many situations to explore in each session”.
It was also accepted that the situation where a driver goes through a qualifying round only to later be found to have breached track restrictions “does not happen regularly and certainly not recently”, prompting it to be investigated as ” new situation’.
“The team noted that it had taken both risk and expended resources to compete in Q3,” the FIA’s bulletin said. “The stewards accept this point. However, when assessing a penalty after a session, it is no different than any other situation.
“The usual penalty is to delete the lap time in question and the stewards are ordering the same penalty here.
“However, as a consequence, the driver would not have progressed to Q3 and therefore, in deference to all other competitors, the stewards are ordering that all Q3 lap times for the driver are also deleted.”
Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB18
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
The bulletin also confirms that the Q2 lap in question by Perez has also been deleted, meaning his revised best time drops him to 13th in the qualifying standings.
Perez’s penalty will move Mercedes’ George Russell to the second row of the grid, starting fourth behind Max Verstappen and the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
One of the biggest losers from failing to erase Perez’s lap immediately was AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, who dropped to 11th in Q2 after finishing 0.014 seconds off Mick Schumacher’s time in 10th.
The stewards also confirmed that Mercedes driver Russell was cautioned for trespassing when he crossed the track on foot after his Q3 crash.
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