Sergio Perez PUNISHED by FIA after Singapore Grand Prix crash

Perez op Circuit Gilles Villeneuve — Photo: © LAT Images

Singapore Grand Prix

Perez PUNISHED by FIA after Singapore GP crash

The weekend goes from bad to worse for Red Bull as Checo cops a penalty for colliding with Alex Albon

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Monday 18 September 2023 12:42

Sergio Perez has been handed a five second penalty and had a point added onto his racing license for a collision with Alex Albon during the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver was desperately trying to make up places having qualified 13th on Saturday and became involved in two separate occasions with Albon.

His attempts at overtaking the Williams driver were labelled as 'f*****g dirty' by Albon, and now it seems the FIA are in agreement.

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Formula 1's governing body described his lunge up the inside of Albon as the pair were heading into turn 13 as an "optimistic late manoeuvre that could be defined as 'diving in', and that there was nothing that [Albon] could have done to avoid the collision".

As a result, Perez was penalised and copped a five-second penalty which will have no impact on his eight-place finish as AlphaTauri's Liam Lawson finished 18 seconds behind the Mexican in ninth.

Albon furious with Perez

Alex Albon was not happy with Sergio Perez's lunge up the inside of him at the Singapore GP

The Perez punishment is likely to be of no consolation to Albon, who ended up finishing the race in 11th despite looking good for another points finish for much of the race.

The incident didn't receive too much air-time during the race, but Albon's expletive-laden radio message certainly brought it to the attention of the race stewards.

Albon told the media afterwards how the incident had completely ruined his race.

"We did the race perfectly," he said. "I was running P9, was about to overtake Liam for P8, then I got dive-bombed by Checo into Turn 13.

"He T-boned me and I went straight on into the wall, I had to reverse out, I dropped to 13th and I finished 11th so we should have scored points today and we didn't."