diff --git a/kernel.spec b/kernel.spec
index 80f6c0660..654c7ee4b 100644
--- a/kernel.spec
+++ b/kernel.spec
@@ -1225,7 +1225,7 @@ BuildKernel() {
 
     # make sure EXTRAVERSION says what we want it to say
     # Trim the release if this is a CI build, since KERNELVERSION is limited to 64 characters
-    ShortRel=$(python3 -c "import re; print(re.sub(r'\.pr\.[0-9A-Fa-f]{32}', '', '%{release}'))")
+    ShortRel=$(perl -e "print \"%{release}\" =~ s/\.pr\.[0-9A-Fa-f]{32}//r")
     perl -p -i -e "s/^EXTRAVERSION.*/EXTRAVERSION = -${ShortRel}.%{_target_cpu}${Flav}/" Makefile
 
     # if pre-rc1 devel kernel, must fix up PATCHLEVEL for our versioning scheme