Perez penalised for Albon collision but keeps eighth

Sergio Perez has been handed a post-race five-second time penalty for causing a collision with Alex Albon in the F1 Singapore Grand Prix.

Lewis Larkam

17 Sep 2023

Perez penalised for Albon collision but keeps eighth

The penalty does not affect Perez’s finishing position of eighth place, as the Red Bull driver held an 11.3 second buffer over Liam Lawson’s AlphaTauri.

Perez and Albon clashed at Turn 13, with the stewards deeming that the Mexican had made an “optimistic” late lunge and was to blame for the collision.

“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,” the stewards noted.

“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.”

Meanwhile, no further action was taken against Williams driver Albon for an alleged overtake on Perez under the Virtual Safety Car.

“During the VSC period, Car 23 which was exiting the pits and Car 11 which was on track, arrived at SC2 at the same time. The timing system was unable to determine that there was any diffence in their respective times of arrival at SC2. Video evidence was inconclusive when combined with an examination of the SC/VSC delta times,” the stewards explained.

“Each of the team representatives believed that as definitive information was not available at the time, no further action should occur. The stewards agree with this view.”