Sergio Perez also received a grid penalty of three spots after his stoppage at the end of the Canadian Grand Prix for driving unsafely back to the pit lane with a broken rear wing. According to Jan Lammers, while that penalty was completely justified, it was important that it prevented a safety car.
Segio Perez was instructed by Red Bull to drive back to the pit lane after his spin. After the impact, this should not really have been allowed, as driving back was not done safely. However, the Austrian racing stable was keen to avoid a safety car, as Max Verstappen was leading with a lead. Had the safety car entered the track, that lead would have disappeared like snow in the sun.
“It does accentuate how big a mistake Perez made. He makes a mistake, basically a safety car. Actually, Red Bull is still saving him a bit, because otherwise he will go through Mexico tarred and feathered of course. Then he not only failed to perform himself, he also deprives Max Verstappen of victory. At least, he could have,” Lammers said in the NOS F1 podcast.
Lando Norris was driving in second place at the time and might have been able to make a serious overtaking move at the restart, the former Formula 1 driver believes. “We know that the McLarens get temperature in the tyres faster than the Red Bulls, so if there had been a sudden restart and Max had had to give that lead back, I don’t know how it would have ended.”
World championship
Sergio Perez’s DNF meant that ‘only’ 25 points were scored for the World Championship. Lammers sees that Red Bull is no longer the stable factor it was in the last two seasons. The Dutch GP sporting director sees in McLaren a really dangerous opponent the rest of this season.
“Max and Red Bull are lucky to have built up such a buffer at the beginning of the season. Now McLaren seem like a constant factor anyway and if they hadn’t had that buffer for the rest of the season. I am curious as to who will win the championship from Barcelona onwards. That could well be McLarens once.”
And then back to Perez and his form. The 34-year-old routine driver signed a new contract with Red Bull Racing before the weekend in Canada. That raised some questions among the public, including Lammers. “It gives logic a bad name. It is very crazy, what is the reason for that? No doubt that is an underlying reason that we don’t know from the outside, but it is not logical.”
