Sergio Perez secured his maiden career podium at Suzuka, albeit grappling with balance issues throughout the Japanese Grand Prix. Despite starting second, Perez trailed his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen, who ultimately led the team to another one-two finish this season.
In the initial laps, Verstappen maintained a comfortable lead over Perez. However, a small error at the second Degner corner allowed Verstappen to widen the gap further. Perez lamented the handling of his RB20 during the race.
Reflecting on the event, Perez acknowledged the challenges posed by the restart and the need to maintain focus over an extended duration.
“It was a good weekend for the team, and first of all, I think obviously with the restart and doing the start again, it is always quite hard to keep the focus for such a long period of time,” he explained.
“My second start was a little bit better, but just not enough to get Max, and I think we paid the price a little bit because we were a bit off-balance in that first stint, which meant we couldn’t keep it alive.
In a race that required two pit stops, Red Bull chose a medium-medium-hard strategy for Sergio Perez. However, after the initial round of pit stops, Perez was undercut by Lando Norris, putting him behind the McLaren on track.
Nevertheless, Perez swiftly overtook Norris and began to feel increasingly at ease with the hardest compound of Pirelli tires as the race progressed.
“We had to box and were undercut by Lando [Norris] and then I had to push too much on that medium stint but then on the hard stint, I was a lot more comfortable,” he stated. The pace came back, but I think I suffered a bit from that first stint because we were a bit unbalanced.
“We have good momentum, and if you remember here last year, it was probably my worst weekend. So if we are strong in places like this with a lot of high and medium-speed corners, I think we can be strong anywhere.”
