Sergio Perez contradicted himself Sao Paulo race weekend He described it as one of his “strongest weekends” in terms of pace, despite a “disastrous” race in Brazil in which he finished 11th in the Grand Prix on Sunday, nine seconds shy of finishing a minute behind teammate Max Verstappen. .

The Brazilian GP sprint race looked promising for Perez, who finished the 24-lap race in 13th place and finished eighth in the points. He started from 12th place in the Grand Prix and could only advance one place in the difficult wet race. In stark contrast, Verstappen stormed the field to win 19 seconds ahead of runner-up Esteban Ocon, despite starting 17th due to an engine penalty.

Perez blamed the unsuccessful start of the race for his team’s problems due to missing a tire change. Aston Martin’s AMR24 F1 car of Lance Stroll skidded off the track during the formation lap, hit the wall and ran aground on the gravel. The incident pushed the start of the race from 12:30 to 12:47 local time, causing delays and grid reshuffling.

Drivers were allowed to change tires while technicians prepared for the canceled start. Unfortunately for Perez, Red Bull chose to keep him on cold tyres, which led to him spinning on the first lap. Although the team realized the mistake, it was too late to rectify the situation, causing Perez to have a poor start to the race. Speaking about the difficulties he experienced in Interlagos, Perez said: media:

“It was a disaster because at that time we didn’t know we could change the tires until the last minute and we didn’t have time to change them.”

“We started the race with very cold tires and there was no one in front of me so I went into the water wall, so the start was a disaster.

“We were making progress but unfortunately we ran into a red flag and on the restart there was zero visibility but we made some progress.”

“We got up to Liam (Lawson) and had some contact in Turn 1, then I went straight into Turn 4 and lost the position to Lewis (Hamilton).

“It was a complete disaster and nothing really worked.”

However, reflecting on the race weekend at Interlagos, Perez changed his perspective and suggested that there were many positives to be taken from it. HE in question:

“There are some positives from the weekend and of course Max’s victory is very important for the team.

“It was a very strong weekend in terms of momentum, in terms of pace, so there are a lot of positives from that.”

“I think it was one of the strongest weekends in terms of pace. We got the car out immediately and were very competitive in FP1.”

“It was a much more competitive weekend and hopefully the momentum will come back to us.”

Although the Mexican driver faces significant challenges, he may be referring to the increased speed of the car, which was evident in Verstappen’s performance and was missing in the last Grand Prix due to the stability issue in the RB20.