Sergio Perez gives peculiar reason for Spanish Grand Prix penalty incident

Red Bull driver Sergio Perez.

Sergio Perez revealed that his mirrors were “full of dust” in Canada last time out, as a crash ruined his race and latterly caused a grid penalty.

The Red Bull driver damaged his rear wing after spinning out on a drying track, but explained that he could not see the damage at the back of his RB20 as he brought it back to the pit lane, and was later handed a three-place grid penalty for the Spanish Grand Prix for driving the car in an unsafe condition.

Sergio Perez reveals mirrors were ‘full of dust’ as he could not see Canada damage

Additional reporting by Sam Cooper

Perez spun rearwards at Turn 5 in Montréal last time out and went backwards into the tyre barrier, but was able to get going and back to the pit lane again – prompting his grid penalty, given the state of his car at the time.

But the Red Bull driver explained he would have done so again, given the faith he placed in the pit wall to give him instructions about whether or not he needed to pull over.

On top of that, he could not actually see the damage.

“In hindsight, [I would have done] nothing differently, because I fully trust my team on what they tell me to do,” Perez told media including PlanetF1.com in Barcelona.

“At the time, I didn’t have any visibility with my mirror, so I think all the drivers were in the same boat because of the race.

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“They were full of dust, too. I had no idea on the damage. I think we’ve seen a lot of similar incidents in the past just a few races ago, and nothing has happened – so we were a little bit surprised, but nothing we can do.

“After that weekend we found a lot of issues that we had, so I think it’s a weekend that we can basically get rid of, because we just didn’t have one issue.

“We thought at the time we had one issue, but when we looked into it, there was a couple more issues to it.”

With three places set to be added to wherever he qualifies in Barcelona on Saturday, Perez admitted his main target will be to ensure Red Bull emerge from the Spanish Grand Prix weekend as the highest-scoring constructor.

And if he is able to bring himself to the podium, that will be his main goal.

“Considering the grid penalty, I think we are able to be the team that gets out of here with the most points this weekend, [that] would be a good one. And to be able to get back to the podium will be the target,” he said.

“We’ve obviously been been working very hard the last few days back in the factory, we got a pretty good understanding of things.

“In Formula 1, we live in such a small margin world that a few things haven’t been in the right spot. But the good thing about it is, obviously, it hurts a lot to have this bad row of races. But at the same time, it’s great to be back here in Barcelona. I know that if I can do a good race, I can get my momentum back that I had not long ago.”

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