Checo Pérez was penalized for a maneuver that was not allowed in the Safety Car period
The Mexican, Sergio Checo Pérez, was penalized with 10 seconds due to the incident that the Red Bull driver had during the first laps of the Grand Prix of Emilia Romagna, when the Safety Car was on the track.
An accident with Canadian Nicholas Latifi’s Williams forced the organization to remove the safety car to clean the track at the rain-complicated Autodromo Internazionalle Enzo e Dino Ferrari. During the safety car period, Mick Schumacher crashed the Haas F1 and lost the front wing, extending the safety car time even longer.
Checo Pérez made a mistake at the time, which caused him to lose his position fHire two pilots; then the Mexican returned to the track and passed them again. The rule states that You cannot pass cars during the Safety Car periodunless the problem of the car being passed is obvious – like Checo’s problem and for which the others were not penalized.
A few laps after the incident, the commissioners announced the investigation and moments later they gave Pérez the 10 second penalty.
Checo Pérez served the sanction during his pit stop, where he swapped intermediate rain tires for medium slicks and swapped the steering wheel of his car.
Checo Pérez started from second position on the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, but lost the position to teammate Max Verstappen at the beginning and later a mistake on his part caused him to lose third place to Charles Leclerc.
Pérez complained on the radio that the RB16B’s steering wheel turned on its own; he lost a lot of time against the first three that he simply couldn’t keep up with in the opening laps of the competition, but then little by little he made up time against Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, third at the time.
The race is still under development …