Perez makes bizarre 'dust' claim behind Spanish GP grid penalty

Sergio Perez has claimed that he was unable to see the extent of the damage to his RB20 during the Canadian Grand Prix due to "dust" in his mirrors, whilst addressing his three-place grid penalty. 

The Red Bull driver will be demoted three places on the grid for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, after driving a severely wounded car back to the pits in Montreal after crashing at turn six. 

Perez dragged his rear wing around the circuit whilst returning to the pits, following orders by Red Bull to bring the car home.

In doing so, the Mexican driver scattered debris across the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, resulting in the FIA taking action, with a fine and grid penalty having been the consequence. 

Looking back on the incident, Peres has insisted he would not do anything differently.

"In hindsight, nothing differently, because I fully trust my team on what they tell me to do," Perez told select media including RacingNews365. 

"At the time, I didn't have any visibility with my mirror. So I think all the drivers were in the same boat because of the race. 

"They were full of dust, too, I had no idea on the damage. I think we've seen a lot of similar incidents in the past just a few races ago, and nothing has happened. 

"So we were a little bit surprised, but nothing we can do."

Issues discovered

Perez had struggled throughout the Canadian GP even prior to crashing, with the 34-year-old having been eliminated in Q1. 

After qualifying in Canada, Perez complained of struggling with the rear of his car, which had looked unsettled.

Nevertheless, during the race he made minimal progress, although it was discovered after the most recent round that his RB20 had multiple issues.

"After that weekend we found a lot of issues that we had," revealed Perez. "So I think it's a weekend that we can basically get rid of, because we just didn't have one issue. 

"We thought at the time, we had one issue, but when we looked into it, there was a couple more issues to it."