The two safety car periods bunched up the field together and gave opportunity to plenty of drivers to score a point. Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly did so but for the stewards to penalise him after the race.
The second safety car in the 2018 Formula 1 British Grand Prix when Haas’ Romain Grosjean and Renault’s Carlos Sainz collided, it helped Gasly to be just one step away from scoring a point in 11th while battling Force India’s Sergio Perez.
On re-start, Perez cleared Gasly for the position which soon became the fight for 10th after the retirement of Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen. The two went at each other for the remainder of the race until Gasly re-passed Perez.
It was on Lap 50 when Gasly made the move at Turn 17 when the two touched with Perez shedding some bodywork. It compromised the Mexican’s run into the next sequence as Gasly pulled away – the incident was then put under investigation.
Perez was unhappy on the radio to lose out on a point position while Gasly kept to the tunes that it is ‘hard racing’. However, the stewards held Gasly as responsible after his exit in the corner was compromised due to hitting the sausage kerb.
The FIA understood that the Frenchman was trying to make a clean pass but the hit on the sausage kerb meant he carried a little more speed, thereby forcing Perez off which eventually helped Gasly to make the move.
While the Mexican is pleased with the steward’s right decision, on the other hand, Gasly is not so much as not he loses a point but the five-second penalty dropped him to 13th as Force India completed a double points run to move ahead of McLaren.
“Five-second penalty, ridiculous..Every weekends there are contacts with no further action, that’s part of racing & what makes it exciting,” he said. “[It] was [a] close battle, [and] I enjoyed it. Just let us race and stop all this bullshit with penalties!
“[We] will keep fighting.” Before the penalty, Gasly said: “I had a tough battle with Sergio towards the end of the race, I saw one chance in the last chicane which was really tight and we touched a bit, but in the end I managed to make the move.”
“We made the most of the various safety cars and made it back into the points,” said Perez. “With two laps to go, Gasly pushed me off track. I gave him enough space but that was not enough, we still made contact and I lost the place.
“I believe it was an unfair move. I’m pleased that the FIA took action after the race to penalise Gasly, which gave me back the final point.” The Mexican’s race was compromised after he was spun across due to a minor hit from Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson.
He slid across the pit exit and barely missed the two Williams drivers who were starting from the pitlane. “The incident at the start compromised my race: I lost the rear end trying to avoid the incidents ahead, spun and suddenly I was at the back of the field.”
It was Sergey Sirotkin ahead of Lance Stroll when Perez came infront of the Russian in a scary position – the Mexican was only inches apart from a huge sideways crash. Stroll who was behind Sirotkin said he was surprised to see Perez and that it was quite close.
