Sergio Perez has had all his times from the final round of today's qualifying session deleted as well as his fastest Q2 lap, dropping him from fourth to 13th place on the grid for tomorrow's sprint race in Spielberg, Austria.
Many drivers had their times deleted during the session for exceeding track limits. But Perez' final Q2 lap time was allowed to stand despite video footage showing him clearly straying wide at turn 8.
The lap ended up being good enough for sixth place at the end of Q2 meaning the Red Bull driver progressed to the final round in place of AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly. Without it, he would have missed the cut in 13th.
The race stewards didn't have time to look into the incident further until after the session. When they did, it was decided that the lap time should be deleted. And because that meant he didn't make the cut, all his Q3 times were deleted too.
"It is disappointing to lose fourth place," Perez commented. the track limits are very tight here this season, but it is frustrating that the Team weren’t told my lap time had been deleted during Q2.
Team principal Christian Horner added: "We feel the penalty for Checo was very harsh and should have been dealt with before Q3 to enable us to improve subsequent performance."
"Perez left the track at Turn 8 on his last flying lap of Q2, just prior to the end of the session," said the official statement from the FIA stewards.
"As this was not identified until the moment before Q3 started, the lap was not deleted prior to the start of Q3 and Perez started Q3.
"The usual penalty is deleting the lap time concerned, and the stewards order the same penalty here.
"As a consequence the driver would not have proceeded into Q3 and therefore, in fairness to all the other competitors, the stewards order that all the lap times for Q3 for the driver also are deleted."
The deletions mean that Perez will now line up in 13th place on tomorrow's sprint race grid.