F1: Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez finishes fifth at Italian GP after being penalized
The Mexican driver finished the Italian Grand Prix in third place, but was penalized five seconds for an illegal overtake against Charles LeClerc.
The Italian Grand Prix was one of the most exciting races in F1 so far this season and McLaren was the big winner with a 1-2 finish. Daniel Ricciardo led the race from start to finish to win in Monza and his teammate Landon Norris ended in second place. The Red Bull driver Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez completed the podium, but he was penalized and finished in fifth place.
Red Bull dropped more points
The Mexican driver was penalized five seconds for illegally overtaking Ferrari driver Charles LeClerc and as a result Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas ended in third place. Unfortunately for Red Bull they dropped points because their top driver, Max Verstappen, crashed with Lewis Hamilton on lap 26.
More bad news for Red Bull because due to that incident the Formula 1 stewards in Italy confirmed that Verstappen will be penalized three spots on the grid in the next Grand Prix in Russia. “We saw that it was gonna be tight into Turn 1,” Verstappen said.
“Lewis also realized that, so after the white line, he moved to the left on the braking. I already had to move on to the green side next to the track. Nevertheless, I thought we were gonna have a nice fight into Turn 1 through Turn 2, but as soon as I was next to him, he just kept squeezing me more and more to the left. Unfortunately, he ran me a bit too much out of the road and then, I clipped the sausage curb and that’s why we touched.”
“I was ahead going into the corner and the next thing you know, I guess Max went over the second curb or something like that,” Hamilton said. “He, obviously, knew at that point that he wasn’t going to make the corner and drove into me. The next thing you know, his [car’s] on top of me. Definitely unfortunate. We’ll speak to the stewards after this, for sure.”