Sergio Perez says a “perfect race” allowed him to take eighth place in the Chinese Grand Prix.
The Racing Point driver qualified outside the top 10 but a strong start put him on course for the points.“It was a tremendous lap one,” he said. “I saw a gap, I went for it and I managed to get a lot of places.”
Perez had been downbeat about the team’s prospects on Friday but said their race performance shows what they can achieve when they maximise their potential.
“We are very pleased with that [result]. It’s what we have to do while the car is not at the level we expected to be. We just have to get out there, try to out-perform them, I think it’s what we did.
“Today we’ve done a pretty good job, very sensible, fantastic lap one and good management of the tyres. I think we just [had] a perfect race.”
After making up ground at the start Perez had to withstand pressure from faster rivals. “I was under a lot of pressure from faster cars behind like Kimi [Raikkonen], at the same time Ricciardo was trying to push him in the beginning as he was in the quali tyre.”
Perez finished less than two seconds behind Ricciardo but said he didn’t have an opportunity to overtake the Renault.
“I was close at times but I think he was just managing the tyre so every time I got close he had the pace to pull away.”
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Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
14th April 2019, 10:10
He is lucky though to have a world class team mate helping him out.
Jere (@jerejj)
14th April 2019, 10:15
@nullapax Indeed.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
14th April 2019, 10:45
@nullapax Agree. His teammates has giving his racing career life line, make him looks good and paying for Mercedes tunnel bill. Perez must be grateful.
GtisBetter (@)
14th April 2019, 10:43
I think the race pace of Stroll forced him to up his game.