Sergio Perez has been hit with four penalty points by stewards for various incidents in a Japanese Grand Prix he branded as "poor." The Mexican was battling back through the field following first-lap contact with Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton, which damaged his front wing. He pitted for repairs under an early Safety Car, but overtook Fernando Alonso just before entering the pit-lane, and was hit with a five-second time penalty and two penalty points by stewards. Whilst recovering and battling for 11th place, he made contact with Kevin Magnussen at the hairpin, causing further damage to his car and earning a five-second time penalty in addition to another two penalty points. He would retire the car before the team would send him back out to 'serve' the penalty so it would not roll over to Qatar - but it was Red Bull's first DNF of an otherwise dominant season. "[I got a] horrible start, basically going into Turn 1, I was just a passenger," Perez told media, including RacingNews365 . "I had Sainz on my right, Lewis on my left, and they just took out the whole front wing endplate. "It's really hard to judge, but as soon as I went into Turn 2 I had no front end. We changed the front wing and I still had no front end so I think there was more damage on the car."
Perez wants review into weekend
Perez wants to analyse the weekend after seemingly being unable to match team-mate Max Verstappen's dominant display, which sealed Red Bull's sixth Constructors' title. Verstappen can wrap up the 2023 Drivers' title next time out in the Qatar Sprint race with a 177 point lead with 180 still on offer, as Perez wants to understand just what went wrong. "We need to review the whole weekend to understand what's happened because it certainly was a poor weekend," he explained. "There are a few directions that we took on Friday that we need to analyse and see what we are able to improve in that regard."
Most read
