Formula 1

Why Perez’s Singapore GP victory is under threat

by Matt Beer
1 min read

The safety car procedure breach that Singapore Grand Prix Sergio Perez is being investigated for is failing to keep close enough to the pace car before the restart.

Red Bull driver Perez must visit the stewards at 11.55pm local time to discuss the matter.

Article 55.10 of F1’s sporting regulations requires the leader to stay within 10 car lengths of the safety car.

This is a measure to try to prevent incidents being caused by the race leader slowing excessively or unpredictably in order to manage the restart more to their advantage.

Perez won on the road by 7.6s, with Red Bull urging him to build a gap over pursuer Charles Leclerc late on in case of a post-race time penalty.

Perez was reminded by his team over the radio to keep the rules over the safety car gap in mind prior to the restart. During an earlier safety car period, Lewis Hamilton had radioed Mercedes to complain about the size of gap Perez was leaving.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner shrugged the matter off.

“I think over the last 10 years we can pull up a whole bunch of precedents for this kind of thing,” he told Sky.

“For us, it’s a non-issue. They asked us to close up, we closed up.”

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