The Mexican triumphed at the Marina Bay circuit on Sunday, despite an investigation by the stewards and a five-second penalty and reprimand for two incidents where he left too big a gap behind the safety car before two restarts.
The rules state that drivers cannot retreat more than 10 car lengths from the safety car before the lights are extinguished – which Perez appears to have done.
But rather than being a deliberate tactic to give himself more space, Perez said the situation was complicated by the excessive speed differential between the F1 cars and the safety car – particularly on the tricky wet track.
“There was a little misunderstanding,” he said. “On the places where I could follow him, he was super slow. On the places where I couldn’t follow him, he was fast. So there was a bit of a miscommunication.
“But I think these conditions are not normal. It’s completely understandable that the conditions we were in, and faced, especially in the final sector, were super tricky.
“So yeah, I don’t expect anything else about it, because the stewards were happy with my explanation and they understood it.”
Sergio Perez set to retain second F1 2022 win
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said he would be surprised if Perez was awarded a penalty given the tricky circumstances at play behind the safety car.
“I would be surprised,” he said after Perez went to see the stewards. “They’ve heard his side of the story, but I think there’s so many precedents that we’ve seen, even in the recent past where there’s been an accordion both on and off the pitch. We saw it even in the formation laps.
He added: “The mitigating surfaces were that the safety car was going so slow. And they had been through about 30 laps on inter tyres, and they’re all out there on a series of slicks.
“You could hear Checo screaming to come up [with it], because they take it first. He therefore has no temperature in his tires. And so I would be absolutely amazed if there was anything.
