After his penalty in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Sergio Perez is now just four points away from automatically receiving a one-year ban from Formula One racing.
During the opening laps of Saturday’s race in Jeddah, the Red Bull driver left his pit box in a hazardous manner, earning him a five-second time penalty.
Red Bull double stacked their cars, as most of the field chose to pit under the early Safety Car.
However, Perez was let go straight into Fernando Alonso’s path at Aston Martin, forcing him to apply the brakes quickly to avoid colliding with the Mexican.
Alonso was penalized by the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix stewards after they determined that he had to “take evasive action to avoid a collision.”
Red Bull was encouraged to follow suit by the race’s early safety car, pitting both of its drivers on lap seven and switching from the medium compound to the hard rubber in anticipation of a low-deg lengthy second stint.
At the end of his pit stop, Perez, however, jumped the gun and launched himself directly into Fernando Alonso’s approaching Aston Martin.
The only option available to the stewards was to give the Mexican a five-second penalty. Luckily, Leclerc’s second-place finish in the race remained unaffected by the fine, as he trailed the second Red Bull by 10 seconds.
Perez clarified, “It was actually my mistake when I was leaving because I was told to hold it back by the team.”
“When
