Sergio Pérez didn’t experience a perfect sprint in Sao Paulo, but the Mexican ultimately achieved third place and was able to gain important points over Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) in the fight for runner-up title.
“It wasn’t easy,” says Pérez, who is mainly struggling with his bad start.
The Red Bull driver fell back two positions in the first corners. “I had a bad start and lost a place to George,” reports the Mexican. “And then another place to Lewis in turn four.” Pérez then had to fight his way back to the front, which affected his entire race.
“I had to put a lot of strain on my tires,” he said after the sprint. “And I think I paid the price in the end.” The Red Bull driver believes that with a better start he would still have had the chance to catch second-placed Lando Norris (McLaren).
In the final laps, Pérez struggled with his tires, meaning he was able to keep up with the leaders but was unable to catch up. “The problem I had was that I couldn’t manage the tires,” explains the Mexican. “I had to push. And we know that this track is very sensitive to that.”
“Unfortunately it cost us something in the end,” says the World Championship runner-up, who ended up in the top three for the first time since the Italian GP in Monza. “I think that without the start we could have been much further ahead.”
Pérez gains points on Hamilton
The Brazil sprint was also important with regard to the runner-up position in the World Championship: Because Lewis Hamilton only collected two World Championship points in seventh place, Pérez was able to extend his lead by four points. Before the Sao Paulo GP on Sunday, the Mexican is in second place with 246 points, while the Mercedes driver only has 222 points to his name.
“Of course it’s important, but it’s more important to keep the momentum because overall we had a very good day,” said Pérez. Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko also confirms this: “He was actually very good the whole weekend,” says the Austrian on “Sky”.
The fact that he only starts the race from ninth place on the grid on Sunday is due to a yellow flag in qualifying. “We know about the unfortunate situation caused by Piastri’s spin, otherwise he would be third there too,” believes Marko. “He drove a solid race, waited, overtook and in the end achieved the same time as the leaders.”
“He made up points on Hamilton and that’s also promising for tomorrow,” hopes Marko. Pérez is also confident for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix on Sunday: “Hopefully we can achieve a strong result in the main race tomorrow.”