Perez leaves Suzuka with four penalty points

The Japanese GP was a race to forget for Sergio Perez. The Mexican was already involved in a collision at the start of the race, in which he damaged the car, followed by a wing change during the safety car, where he committed a pit entry offense when he overtook Fernando Alonso, and then during the race he also tangled with Kevin Magnussen, almost collided with Lando Norris and eventually retired.

But the Mexican did return to the race after a few laps in the pits, so much so that he made a stop where he served a 5-second penalty for a collision with Magnussen, which will not carry over to the next race, and then retired for good. However, the 12 penalty points that Perez received for the safety car offense and the collision with Magnussen will be carried over into the next 4 months, and he accumulated a total of 7 last year, of which 2 will be deleted on October 2 this year.

"The start of the race was very bad, in the first corner I was just a passenger in my car," he said after the race. "I had Sainz on the right, Lewis on the left, and they broke off the entire side of my front wing. In the first two corners I had no grip on the front end. After changing the wing, the condition did not improve, so I think the racing car was damaged elsewhere. We have to look at what happened this weekend because it was a really bad weekend for me."

Perez's teammate Max Verstappen can become the champion already at the sprint race in Qatar, where he must win 3 points more than Perez.