Sergio Perez expects ‘strict’ stewards to penalise Lewis Hamilton

Sergio Perez believes Lewis Hamilton will be penalised by F1’s stewards over an incident during Dutch Grand Prix qualifying.

The Red Bull driver claimed he was impeded by Hamilton at Turn 9 during Q1 at Zandvoort, branding the seven-time world champion an “idiot” over team radio.

Hamilton faces an investigation for the incident and could receive a grid drop if he is deemed to have blocked Perez. The Mercedes driver suffered a shock Q2 elimination with only the 12th fastest time.

Perez described the incident as “unfortunate” and simply being the “wrong time, wrong moment”, but reckons a penalty is coming Hamilton’s way.

”He has tried his best [to get out of the way] but unfortunately, we just ended up in the wrong [place] at the wrong time," Perez said.

"The stewards have been really strict this year, and I've got penalties for a lot worse than that, so I do expect him to get a penalty, unfortunately.

"I think he did the best he could [to get out of the way], and there probably should be a little more [margin given] in that regard, but it is what it is.”

Perez qualified fifth but was forced to use a second set of fresh soft tyres in order to safely progress into Q2. The Mexican felt this ultimately cost him a better starting position for Sunday’s grand prix.

“I should have also been putting a lap on my first attempt in Q2,” Perez said. “It was just unfortunate because I think our qualifying could have looked a bit different with two sets.”

He added: “I think there is always a bit in track evolution, two sets of tyres. There is probably a few tenths in it. Hard to know obviously.

“Obviously just having one run you don’t want to mess it up. The lap wasn’t that clean, whereas when you have two sets you can attack a lot more the first one [lap].”