Helmut Marko has singled out a decision Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton once made to excuse Red Bull after Sergio Perez received a penalty following the 2024 Canadian GP.
The team from Milton Keynes enjoyed great success with one of their drivers in Montreal on Sunday. But while Max Verstappen won his third consecutive Canadian GP, the weekend was disappointing for Perez again. It was even off the back of Red Bull gifting him a new contract.
Perez headed across the Atlantic with a new deal in his back pocket after crashing out of the Monaco GP. The 34-year-old also only qualified in P16 in Monte Carlo and again failed to get out of Q1 in Montreal. Perez left Red Bull reeling after qualifying in P16 for the Canadian GP.
Sergio Perez and Red Bull received penalties after the 2024 Canadian GP
He endured back-to-back retirements as Red Bull pushed Perez back into the garage on Lap 51 of the Canadian GP. The Guadalajara native wrecked the rear of his RB20 after hitting the barrier at Turn 6 following a spin. Perez lost control of his car after dipping onto the wet line.
But Red Bull told Perez to bring his car back to the pit lane to retire, rather than parking it in a service road. So, the stewards handed Perez a three-place grid penalty for the Spanish GP and fined Red Bull $25k (£20k). They felt he should not have continued due to the damage.
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Red Bull motorsport advisor Marko, however, believes the team were within their rights to ask Perez to coax his car back to the pits. The Mexican stopping out on the circuit may have required a safety car that could have denied Verstappen his chance to win the Canadian GP.
Helmut Marko points to Lewis Hamilton’s 2020 British GP to excuse Red Bull
Marko also notes how Mercedes did not tell Hamilton to stop during the British GP in 2020 after the 39-year-old sustained a puncture. The Briton’s front-left tyre blew on the final lap yet he drove home with three working wheels to win at Silverstone as Verstappen closed in.
“We’re not discussing it anymore,” Marko has told OE24. “We can get over the three places drop. At the time, we didn’t know how bad the damage was. We couldn’t see it with the camera settings we had available.
“We wanted Checo to keep driving because anything was possible in this race. And you never know how much debris will fly away. Others have driven around with more dangling parts. Lewis Hamilton once won at Silverstone on three wheels.”
Lewis Hamilton was one of four drivers to suffer punctures in the 2020 British GP
The stewards felt Perez and Red Bull deserved penalties after returning to the pits with a car carrying substantial damage during the Canadian GP as several parts of his rear wing fell off. The aspects that he lost may have given other drivers a puncture or put the marshals at risk.
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Hamilton and Mercedes, on the other hand, avoided a penalty at the British GP in 2020 after he finished the race with three wheels. The stewards did not feel the need to issue penalties after the Briton and then-teammate Valtteri Bottas sustained punctures during the final laps.
Carlos Sainz and Kimi Raikkonen – then of McLaren and Alfa Romeo respectively – sustained punctures, as well. The quartet saw their Pirelli tyres fail due to a blend of debris from other incidents in the race plus an early safety car seeing most of the field pit and run to the finish.
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