Sergio Perez has slammed the way the FIA policed track limits at last weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix, with the Mexican insisting that the last-minute changes were “impossible to see”.
Perez was one of several drivers to receive a track limit penalty at the Lusail International Circuit last Sunday, after exceeding track limits too many times.
The biggest issue for most of the drivers was Turns 12 and 13, which were changed after qualifying.
Due to concerns with Pirelli’s tyres and the kerbs at that section of the circuit, the track was narrowed by 80cm between Turns 12 and 13, something which frustrated the drivers as they weren’t consulted about the decision.
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Instead, many discovered the track changes the via the media.
Track limits were enforced incredibly strictly by the stewards, something which saw Perez demoted to P10 once his five-second time penalty was added to his finishing time.
Perez actually received two five-second time penalties during the race, but he served the first during a pit-stop.
The 33-year-old slammed the way track limits were policed as a “joke” and “really bad”, although he admitted that perhaps he didn’t do a good enough job staying within the white lines.
“It was, for me, impossible to see,” Perez said, as reported by Motorsport Week. “I was taking so much margin, giving up so much lap time for it, but I still got more.
“For me, it was very difficult to judge, but there were drivers who were able to do that, so I don’t think I did a good enough job in that regard.
“But I also think it was a joke what we ended up doing with the track limits. First of all, I think that it is really bad that we come up with a solution last minute to police it. Then to start giving penalties away.”
With him having also been eliminated in Q2 and having crashed out of the sprint race, it was an overall frustrating weekend in Qatar for Perez.
He was “very disappointed” afterwards to have let Red Bull down, with him now being under even more pressure to claim second in the Drivers’ Championship.
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“It was very frustrating, as you can imagine,” Perez added. “A really long afternoon, and I was very disappointed that I let my team down.
“It was a very poor weekend overall with the incident yesterday, which made it even worse today.
“Plenty of things to look at, and make sure we put everything in place for the coming races.”