Sergio Perez has been demoted to P13 on the grid for the Austrian Grand Prix Sprint on Saturday.
The Mexican was in the elimination zone during Q2 but made a late improvement to get inside the top 10, eventually qualifying fourth at the Red Bull Ring.
However, on that final lap in Q2, it was clear Perez had exceeded track limits through Turn 8, a corner not usually known for doing so.
Meu amigo, a imagem do track limits do Pérez é tão clara que não precisaria nem do VAR. Tá parecendo arbitragem do Campeonato Brasileiro… Enxerga o desnecessário e não enxerga o necessário. #F1 #F1noGE #AustrianGP #Formula1 pic.twitter.com/cUkkQ9f30z
— Rafael Lopes (@voandobaixo) July 8, 2022
And with the stewards enforcing a zero-tolerance rule on crossing the white line, they later deleted not only his lap times in Q3 but also his fastest time in Q2, dropping Checo to P13.
“It is disappointing to lose fourth place,” he commented. “The track limits are very tight here this season, but it is frustrating that the team weren’t told my lap time had been deleted during Q2.”
Red Bull boss Christian Horner was unhappy the stewards had waited until after Perez had competed in Q3 before acting on the Q2 lap, a mistake they noted in their ruling.
“This situation, where a driver moves through to a subsequent round of qualifying, and then is identified as having committed a track limits breach, does not happen regularly and certainly not recently. Thus the stewards have to examine this as a new situation,” the statement said.
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“The team made the point that they took both risk and expended resources to compete in Q3. The stewards accept this point. However, in assessing a penalty after a session, this is no different than any other situation.
“The usual penalty is deleting the lap time concerned, and the stewards order the same penalty here.
“As a consequence, the driver would not have proceeded into Q3 and therefore, in fairness to all the other competitors, the stewards order that all the lap times for Q3 for the driver also are deleted.”