Sergio Perez, Racing Point, Circuit of the Americas, 2019

Perez ordered to start race from pits following weighbridge infringement

2019 United States Grand Prix

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Sergio Perez will start the United States Grand Prix from the pits after the stewards ruled he failed to stop at the weigh bridge when instructed to during second practice.

Perez was told to perform a pit stop when he pitted at the end of second practice. When he came into the pits he was shown the red light and signal indicating he should stop at the weighbridge, but drove past it.

His race engineer pointed out his error, and told him to return to the team’s garage but not to pull into the pit bay. However Perez did so, and the crew replaced his tyres. After this he was pushed back to the weighbridge.

The stewards ruled Perez “failed to stop for weighing when required to do so. Instead, he drove on and proceeded to do a pit stop where the car was worked on by lifting the car and all four wheels were changed, in breach of Article 29.1 (a).

“The penalty imposed is a mandatory penalty specified under the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations and the stewards note that they have no discretion to impose an alternative penalty.”

Pierre Gasly received the same penalty at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix earlier this year.

Perez’s radio messages when he missed the weighbridge

To Perez:Perez passes the weighbridge
Checo weighbridge, weighbridge.
Perez:I didn’t see it, what I do?
Perez:What do I do?
To Perez:Come to the garage, come to the garage but stop outside.
To Perez:Perez pulls into the pit box where his tyres are changed
Pass the pit stop, pass pit box.

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21 comments on “Perez ordered to start race from pits following weighbridge infringement”

  1. This is so sad to hear for Sergio. Seems like a massive lack of communications.
    Makes you wonder how it happens. The pit crew should have been informed not to touch the car.Sounds like Serg too was a bit confused by instructions.
    blockquote>Come to the garage, come to the garage but stop outside.
    Perhaps should have told him NO BOX, NO BOX.
    Good news for Danny Ric thou.

    1. @aaaa Not really, the only mistake is they don’t tell the pit crew to not change the tires but immediately push him back to the weighbridge. Instructing Perez to stop outside or inside the garage is irrelevant as long as they don’t change anything on the car before pushing it back to weighbridge.

  2. So rules are different for “Organisation” and other teams.

    1. No, this rule has existed for years without any change. The big mistake is Racing Point switched his tires before pushing him back to the weighbridge. If they just push him back immediately, Perez would only got a reprimand and penalty point (iirc).

    2. That’s what I thought. Ferrari has made the same mistake before however why did racing point change the tyres?
      Blunder or caught red handed?

      1. Blunder I guess, remember in Baku Gasly also missed the call and he was pushed back to weighbridge due to which he managed to evade the penalty. Why didnt the team do the same, push Perez back to weighbridge?

        1. Chaitanya, you must have been watching an entirely different race to everybody else then, because when Gasly drove past the weigh bridge in Baku earlier this year, he was also forced to start from the pit lane because, just like Perez, the team changed the tyres when Gasly returned to his pit box.
          https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.gasly-hit-with-pit-lane-start-for-missing-weighbridge-summons.xWUkkm2qLR8VycQcftsNW.html

          1. Sorry I forgot, I thought RBR had pushed his car back to weighbridge. So at which race the car was pushed back to weighbridge, I think it happened this year and one of the driver did dodge bullet for this exact penalty?

          2. Found it, it was during qualifying at Monaco GP for Leclerc’s weighbridge call.

  3. This is a massive screw up.

  4. Who cares if a car is underweight in FP?

    1. @coldfly Whether the session in question is a competitive one (race, qualifying), or just a practice session is irrelevant if/when it comes to breaches in the rules, especially the technical regulations.

    2. @coldfly, as soon as the race weekend starts, the cars always have to be in a legal technical specification.

      Furthermore, the times from the free practise sessions do actually have a value – for example, there are situations where cars can be ordered on the grid in terms of their free practise times, and those free practise times are also used as evidence for a driver being able to meet the 107% rule and therefore being allowed to start if, for some reason, they cannot set a lap time in qualifying.

      1. @coldfly
        However I prefer ANON previous explanation better.
        which may lend some credence to what @peartree was alluding to.
        (as Seb would say “copy/paste” Hopefully I get it right this time)

        anon
        27th April 2019, 10:08
        , because, in the past, some teams adopted the tactic to deliberately keep switching between illegal and legal parts during practice sessions with the deliberate intention of making it difficult for the scrutineers to keep track of which part was being used and when.By creating deliberate confusion about which parts were legal and which parts were illegal, some teams would then trick the scrutineers into allowing an illegal part onto the car by making them think it was the legal part. That is why they carry out those random checks during the practice session – because it was a known route for teams to introduce illegal parts onto the car for either qualifying or the race itself.

      2. You’re right, there are situations where we should ‘care’.
        Though I’d still rather see deletion of their practice times rather than automatically starting from the pitlane.

  5. ”I didn’t see it” – LOL, the two light-panels opposite to the FIA-garage and weighing scales display both red light and the driver-number, so should be quite easily noticeable when approaching them at a low-speed. A silly error.

    1. Oftentimes people pay less attention at low (safe) speeds than when driving fast.
      Maybe FIA, in its quest for safety, should abolish pit speed limits ;)

  6. Missing weighbridge deserves a penalty but starting from the pit lane is too harsh when it happens in FP.

    Instead I would like to see driver losing a set of tyres. Usually they have seven sets for qualifying and race, but in this case only six, with still the need to have one set of each three compounds.

  7. HaHa,Don’t let Masi hear you.
    However maybe they do need to add something more to the signalling,
    Perhaps direct radio contact with the driver.(is that allowed….no)
    As it seems heaps of drivers have been caught out by it, even Mahaveer Raghunathan has missed those lights:) I remember Weber saying once that driving the car is a bit like laying back in your bathtub & putting a letter box over your head..,Must be like adding a set of Magoo glasses now that the halo has come in.
    I doubt the team was up to anything sinister.Has kinda stuffed Checo’s weekend tho.
    Just dumb luck for some:)

  8. @bleu
    Sorry, No haha to you Bleu,
    This sounds like the perfect solution,for FP infringement….
    *Not only need an edit button,but a preview would be good too*

  9. Joe Pineapples
    2nd November 2019, 11:20

    Imagine if it had happened a week ago.

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