Perez given eight-place penalty for yellow flag infringements

2016 Singapore Grand Prix

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Sergio Perez has been given two grid penalties for his yellow flag infringements in qualifying.

The Force India driver received a five-place penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for double waved yellow flags and a further three-place penalty for overtaking under yellow flags.

The stewards also gave him three penalty points for not slowing down enough when the yellow flags were displayed.

“The driver of car 11 failed to reduce his speed significantly and be prepared to change direction or stop as required under Art2.4.5.1(b) when double yellow flags were being waved at both turns nine and ten,” ruled the stewards.

“The stewards took into consideration the fact that the driver had two corners in which to slow down significantly and failed to do so and both of which were blind corners (including one where the accident had taken place and where the damaged car was still in the barriers) and where the driver would not have known if the track had a hazard wholly or partly blocking the track and/or marshals working on or beside the track.”

Perez had said he expected the stewards investigation would be “no problem” for him.

After receiving the penalty Perez said he was “disappointed” by the news “because I did significantly lift off for the yellow flags during Q2”.

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    Keith Collantine
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    25 comments on “Perez given eight-place penalty for yellow flag infringements”

    1. Right decision on this occasion. Just find it odd how it took four hours to decide it.

      However I am a bit baffled as to why a red flag wasn’t shown when Charlie Whiting specifically said that he would throw a red flag in those situations after what happened at Hungary.

      1. @craig-o:
        I agree with you, this was the right decision, and not only on this occasion. Pérez pretty much ignored the yellow flags today, going against the letter and the spirit of the rules.

        As for the (missing) red flag: I’m happy that they didn’t fly it, as that would increase the arbitrariness of such a situation. It definitely is arbitrary to slow down some drivers while others can have a trouble-free lap if they’re lucky. But cancelling everyone’s lap, even the laps of drivers who didn’t have to drive past the yellow flags, would be even worse.
        If they want a (relatively) clean solution, they should nullify all lap times that were set under yellow. This should be relatively easy to judge by looking at the marshalling sectors’ timing information: If a driver spent any portion of time in a marshalling sector for which there was a yellow flag, his lap time is to be deleted.
        That way, there’d be no incentive whatsoever to push the limits of what is acceptable or not.

        1. Perhaps a sector red should be introduced for qualification so drivers further round a safe to finish the lap…

          Correct decision this time though…

          1. Yeah, that’d be pretty much what I argued for, just with a different colour.

    2. Finally, a penalty on double yellows. Hope the warning message will get to the other drivers as well.

      1. The warning message is already known for all the drivers : “Only Rosberg is allowed to breach constantly the rules”
        Perez just wanted to give it a go today and he failed badly !

        1. yeah, lolz. Although when it comes to getting away with stuff, Marc Marquez is the king of skating.

        2. Come on, Hungary was an exceptional circumstance. Rosberg slowed sufficiently in that part of the track and Alonso had already got out of the way, and the track was drying so Rosberg went much much faster than anyone in the last part of the lap handing him pole.

          This case is different in so many ways

      2. The only message the drivers seem to be getting is that the FIA don’t know what their own rules are. After all, Sergio’s own team-mate has been exonerated of slowing down less under yellow flags, and there’s no provision in the regulations for taking approaches into consideration.

    3. Eight?

      Is that a normal penalty number?

      1. Two penalties: Five plus three grid places, as it says in the second paragraph:
        ‘The Force India driver received a five-place penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for double waved yellow flags and a further three-place penalty for overtaking under yellow flags.’

      2. Read the actual bleeding story, and you might learn something

      3. This must be your must embarrassing day Oople.
        First being beaten by two other to be the first to comment.
        Then finding out that what you commented on was already explained in the article (read the bloody article).
        And then finding out you cannot delete your embarrassing comment.

      4. Eight, while not a normal penalty number, is a number the stewards are entitled to issue for a single penalty if they so wish. They could even have done so if one of the two offences had been committed, despite both having histories of being on the 3-5-10 grid penalty sliding scale (Though as nase explains, that’s not the reason in this specific case).

    4. A bit too late for Bottas isn’t it? The session was delayed and everything, the infrigment was clear did they really need more than 10 minutes to reach this conclusion?

      In race days doesn’t seem to take so long, what are the marshals doing on saturday?

      Maybe they hadn’t a copy of the rule book available and in the middle of the million rules who remembers the name of the article and the number of grid places that a driver has to drop?

      1. This is a win for Bottas and Williams. They will start about where they were going to start anyway and have free use of better tyres. Also, if Perez’ lap had been excluded in Q2 then he might not have been given the 8-place penalty putting him well behind both Williams. And Perez will have to start on dud ultra-softs. It’s a win-win-win for Williams.
        Except, of course, in the race Valtteri and Felipe won’t be able to keep their tyres alive and both Force Indias will end up in front anyway. Lord, it’s tough being in lust with Claire.

    5. Good. But sad it took so long. They should’ve reacted quicker to it. Bottas couldn’t take part of Q3 because of it.

      It was quite obvious, at least the overtake under yellows. It must’ve been an immediate penalty right there

    6. @fer-no65 I thought that at first but on second thoughts, the penalty isn’t his time being deleted – it’s a grid penalty. Even if they decided straight away, he still would have had to compete in Q3 to determine his starting position -8 places.

      1. @petebaldwin that would be true if he was already in front of Bottas which he wasn’t, and Bottas abandoned his lap and therefore didn’t had the chance to improve. So the times that should have been taken into account were set in the first attempt, and after that Bottas was in front of Perez.

        If the penalty had been given at the right time Perez would be 20th on the grid (he was 12th before the yellows I think behind Bottas and Massa)

        1. And His time wans’t deleted just because they took too much time to make the decision and 4hours later that would have been pointless

    7. Fair enough, I don’t know what was he thinking. Where’s Massa’s penalty?

    8. Perez himself must have been surprised, he argues telemetry was in his favour….

    9. Charlie should have red flagged the quali. Then probably he could have given those drivers who were on the track and did not complete their laps an additional time on the quali time left to complete their laps.

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