The Mexican driver did not manage to qualify in the top 10, being eliminated as early as Q2<\/b> with a lap time 0.015 seconds slower than that of Daniel Ricciardo with his Racing Bulls. Sergio Perez started the race with a set of hard tires in order to take advantage of a possible safety car intervention, which ultimately did not occur during the race.<\/p>\n
Sergio Perez managed to overtake both Racing Bulls and the Haas of Nico H\u00fclkenberg, but only finished eighth, 55 seconds behind his teammate, Max Verstappen, in what he described as a very challenging race.<\/p>\n
We somehow knew that it was the best result we could obtain. We obviously knew that the hard tires would be difficult at the beginning, but we hoped for a safety car at the right moment, which could potentially put us back in the race,” explained the Red Bull driver.<\/p>\n
The best time for a safety car for Perez would have been from the 28th lap, after all the drivers in front of him had made their pit stops. But even then, he was only fifth, about 15 seconds behind leader Verstappen. Perez was not helped by a lock-up that led him into the gravel at Rivazza on the 17th lap, costing him about five seconds. \u00ab I also suffered some damage \u00bb, he says.<\/p>\n
Sergio Perez suffered from being overtaken by Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz, and George Russell on their fresher tires while extending his first stint on the hard compound. His pace never recovered, he was often lapping in the 1m21s range early on but was never able to replicate it before his pit stop.<\/p>\n
\u00ab I wanted to waste as little time as possible [during the overtaking]. Unfortunately, at the same time, you are at the end of your relay, the temperatures drop, and the grip is simply very poor at that moment. \u00bb<\/p>\n
Red Bull had a difficult weekend at Imola despite Verstappen’s pole position and victory, the team struggling to find the right setup during free practice. Perez said that the lack of performance on the Italian circuit was a bit specific to the circuit but warned that McLaren and Ferrari have made a step forward before the Monaco Grand Prix next weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sergio Perez declared that eighth place was “the best result we could have achieved” at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Imola, a race won by his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":44173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[466,1204,1334],"class_list":["post-28838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-grand-prix-demilie-romagne","tag-perez","tag-red-bull"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n