Sergio Perez hit with time penalty after collision with Alex Albon in Singapore

Sergio Perez has been handed a five-second time penalty after he was found to have caused a collision with Alex Albon during the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Mexican’s race finishing position of eighth will remain though as he was more than five seconds ahead of Liam Lawson.

The stewards announced that two incidents involving the pair would be looked into but while Albon escaped any punishment for allegedly overtaking under the VSC, Perez was not so fortunate.

The pair made contact in Turn 13 and the stewards determined that it was Perez who was the one predominantly at fault.

In their reasoning, the stewards said: “The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 11 (Sergio Perez), the driver of Car 23 (Alexander Albon), team representatives and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video and in-car video evidence.

“At the approach to Turn 13 Car 23 was in front, with Car 40 in front of both of them and travelling slower. Car 23 attempted to take the normal racing line through Turn 13 and was not aware of the exact location of Car 11. Car 11 make a move down the
inside of Car 23 and in doing so collided with Car 23.

“The stewards considered that this was an ‘optimistic’ late manoeuvre by the driver of Car 11, that it could be defined as ‘diving in’, and that there was nothing that the driver of Car 23 could have done to avoid the collision. Accordingly it is determined that the driver of Car 11 was predominantly to blame.

“We note the presence of the slower Car 40 in front of Car 23 caused the driver of Car 11 to believe he could make the overtake and therefore in mitigation of penalty, we determined to allocate only one penalty point.”

Perez’s penalty point brings him up to three for the last 12 months.

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