Finally FIA decided to erase Checo Pérez’s Q3 times; the Mexican will start 13th in the Sprint
The Mexican Czech Perez he will no longer come out fourth in the standings Sprint for him Austrian Grand Prix due to the sanction he received from the FIA following sorting. He will start from 13th position.
In a press release the FIA announced that the man from Guadalajara will not start from fourth place, which he reached following Q3, where he shared the line with Carlos Sainz.
“The Stewards listened to the driver of car 11 (Sergio Perez) and team representatives and examined video evidence.”
Czech Perez he left the track at turn 8 on his final fastest lap of Q2, just before the end of the round. As this was not identified until the time before Q3 began, the lap was not removed prior to the start of Q3 and Czech Perez took part in the last round. “The video was clear and there is no doubt of the non-compliance, which the team admitted”, underlines the text released.
The team of Red Bull defended Czech Perez stating that “going off track at this point is not a clear advantage and brought data to support that point. However, the stewards felt that this was not regarding “gaining a lasting advantage” but regarding “getting out of the way without just cause” which is another part of the same rule and which is the section that is being applied to sessions. of classification”.
“This situation, where a driver goes through to a later round of qualifying and is then identified as having infringed track limits, does not happen regularly and certainly not recently. So the stewards have to look at this as a new situation.”
“The team noted that they took risks and expended resources to compete in Q3. The stewards accept this point. However, imposing a penalty following a session is no different than any other situation. The usual penalty is suppression of the lap time in question, and the stewards order the same penalty here. … therefore, in fairness to all other competitors, the stewards are ordering that all Q3 lap times for the driver are also removed.”
Czech Perez started from box 13, due to the fact that his Q3 laps and the lap with which he advanced in Q2 were eliminated. Therefore, his best time leaves him in that position for qualifying. Sprint ordering the starting grid for the Grand Prix.