Force India fined for Perez's runaway wheel

Sergio Perez lost a wheel in FP2 on Friday at the French Grand Prix, and his team has now been fined €15,000 for the error.

The team has also been given a €85,000 suspended fine, for 12 months providing a similar incident does not happen in that time.

Perez may be considered lucky to have avoided a grid penalty, which would have further affected his below par season so far.

Despite his podium finish in Azerbaijan, the Mexican sits in 12th place in the standings, and will be eyeing a return to form in France this weekend.

The stewards said Perez’s wheel was “very serious and potentially dangerous because it involved a wheel coming off the car at high speed.

“The stewards are satisfied that the wheel gun operator made no error in fitting the wheel, that the witness line was visible and that his manual check of the security of the wheel was satisfactory.

“Likewise the stewards are satisfied that neither the team nor the driver had any warning whatsoever that something was amiss, until the incident occurred. Therefore it would be unreasonable to infer that the team did not take ‘appropriate action’ to stop the car because it had no way of knowing of the problem."