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Marko after Perez penalty: 'Hamilton also won that way'
- Estéban den Toom
Sergio Perez drove back to the pit lane with a broken RB20 during the Canadian Grand Prix. The FIA gave him a grid penalty and a fine for this. When Perez had to come to the stewards, Red Bull told the honest reason for letting Perez drive on. In any case, Helmut Marko does not want to know anything about Red Bull's claims of foul play.
With Max Verstappen leading the race, the Austrian constructor did not want to take any risks. A safety car would definitely not have been beneficial, hence the team letting the Mexican drive back to the pits. Will Buxton wanted to see a much worse penalty for Perez and Verstappen's team, even comparing it to the 2008 crashgate in Singapore in a now-deleted tweet.
Marko reacts to Perez's penalty
Perez has been given a grid penalty of three spots for the next Grand Prix (Spain's Barcelona). "We are not going to talk about it anymore, we will get over the fact that we dropped three places. At the time, we didn't know how serious the damage was. We couldn't see it with the camera settings we had," Marko said in an interview with Oe24.
Marko explained why Red Bull allowed Perez to continue driving. "We wanted Checo to continue because anything was possible in this race. And you never know how much debris will fly off. Others have driven around with more parts hanging off. Lewis Hamilton once won at Silverstone on three wheels."
This article was written in collaboration with Ben Stevens