We already knew at the end of qualifying that Pérez was under investigation. At the end of the second part of qualifying, he broke the track limits in the eighth corner. Other riders who committed the same infraction had their times deleted. Pérez’s violation was only recorded after he had advanced to the top ten drivers.
The stewards therefore took the unusual step of erasing all his times from the third section. For Pérez, this means a drop from fourth to thirteenth place. Pérez’s problematic lap from Q2 was also deleted.
“It’s a result of there being a lot of situations to examine in each session,” said the stewards, who recorded a further 16 infringements of track limits in four different corners.
Red Bull tried to argue that the Mexican did not gain an advantage. However, according to the stewards, it was not about gaining a permanent advantage, but about leaving the track without justifiable reason.
“This situation, where a driver advances to the next round of qualifying and is then found to have breached track limits, does not happen regularly and certainly not recently. So the stewards have to assess it as a new situation.’
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