Sergio Perez explained why he left his pit box despite his team showing him a red light during last weekend’s race.
The stewards took the unusual step of giving the Red Bull driver a penalty point on his licence for the “unsafe release” after blaming him for the resulting near-miss with Fernando Alonso.
Perez had to queue behind his team mate Max Verstappen as the pair pitted during a Safety Car period in Saturday’s race. He admitted he rejoined the queue too hastily after his pit stop was complete.
“We were compromised with such an early Safety Car and that meant that basically everyone just pitted,” he said. “When I was going out, it was actually my mistake, because I was told by the team to hold back. But I looked on the right and there was nobody there when I looked.”
Speaking immediately after the race Perez said “we just need a wider pit lane” in response to the incident, but later accepted responsibility for the incident.
“In hindsight, I think the penalty was correct and that pretty much compromised our race.”
Perez explained he was observing the progress of his pit crew and the oncoming traffic when hedecided to risk an early exit.
“I saw that I didn’t have the proper release. But I didn’t see anyone [coming]. Sometimes the team can be a little bit slower than you in the car.
“But this time was the other way around, so, my bad in that one, but still happily it didn’t change our race.”
Perez’s penalty means he will have at least eight penalty points on his superlicence for the next 15 rounds, until the Singapore Grand Prix in September. Any driver who reached 12 points received an automatic race ban.
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