Two hours and 31 minutes. That’s how much time passed between Sergio Perez taking the chequered flag in the returning Singapore Grand Prix in first place and for the stewards to eventually penalise the Red Bull driver for his repeat safety car infringements.
Along with a delayed race start owing to the slippery conditions that eventually bypassed the full-wet tyres, another chapter for the jewellery debate, plus the looming precedent the governing body might need to set if there have indeed been breaches of the 2021 budget cap, confidence in the FIA took a further blow last weekend.
That appears to have overshadowed a dramatic, if not thrilling, first encounter around the Marina Bay streets since 2019. One in which Perez delivered superbly to end his protracted poor form to streak away from Charles Leclerc late on, while champions Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen struggled to master the treacherous, greasy track.
All told, Verstappen’s seemingly inevitable coronation must wait another week until the Japanese GP this weekend. But another big dose of budget-cap controversy ensured there were plenty of talking points in lieu of the title being definitively decided. And from those subplots, here are 10 things we learned from the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix.
Perez’s five-second penalty was announced over two hours after the race had finished
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
1. Yet more faith in the FIA has been eroded
It wasn’t just the amount of time taken to determine the final classification – eventually issued at 1:42am local – that wrangled. There was inconsistency from the FIA, too.
Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto fully expected Perez to be handed a five-second penalty for at least once (actually three times) dropping more than the regulated 10 car lengths behind the safety car. The Italian citing former Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi copping a similar slap on the wrists in 2020. But when Sebastian Vettel was guilty of the offence in Canada earlier this year, he escaped without a time penalty. Part of the FIA’s justification for Montreal was that numerous drivers had fouled the rules.
As such, a hard and fast regulation hasn’t been met with a hard and fast punishment. This uncertainty was repeated in the justification for Perez’s offence. In one paragraph, the stewards noted that the damp conditions were not reason enough for the Mexican to drop so far behind the Mercedes AMG GT Black Series. Yet in the next…
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