"It was really dangerous": Sergio Perez blasts FIA steward's decision for standing race restart at the 2023 F1 Australian GP

Sergio Perez criticised the race restart of the F1 Australian Grand Prix and warned of a 'big shunt' that could happen due to the poor visibility.

The Australian GP turned out to be quite chaotic, with multiple red flags during the race, one even resulting right after a restart. However, Sergio Perez benefitted from these incidents as he was able to climb up to P5 despite starting from the pitlane after his qualifying incident.

Though he was at a benefit, he criticised the race restart as he believes there was very little visibility due to the sun setting in Melbourne. The rays hitting Albert Park directly and the drivers' eyes made it very difficult for them to see. He told the media,

"It was really dangerous. First of all the warm up, but secondly, we could not see anything [because of the sun]. We cannot race in these conditions anymore. One day, there's going to be a big shunt. We cannot see anything."

The Australian Grand Prix weekend was filled with such incidents and crashes throughout the sessions. However, it is unlikely that any of those were because of the issue that Sergio Perez highlighted, which, interestingly, could be a serious issue.

Instead, during the practice sessions, numerous drivers lost control and ended up in the gravel or with a broken part, and the race was equally chaotic.

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Sergio Perez reveals there was no visibility during the race restart as he avoided Pierre Gasly

Pierre Gasly had a hard race restart at the very end of the race. The final two laps were to be raced after Kevin Magnussen's crash saw the race being red-flagged. After the restart, the Frenchman collided with his teammate and was thrown out of the race.

Sergio Perez revealed that he had to avoid him as he crashed and that too, blindly, because there was no visibility in Turn 1:

"In the last three laps, we were just passengers where we don't have any visibility. I had to avoid Gasly [at the final standing start], and there was no visibility going into Turn 1."

Sergio Perez still stands in P2 in his battle for the championship. He's taken a slip as Max Verstappen is now 15 points clear of him in the lead of the championship. However, this is still a very small gap and only three rounds of the season have taken place so far.