Formula 1 arrived in Spielberg, with it the round of the Austrian Grand Prix, which meant adding another complicated weekend to the row of underwhelming performances for the Mexican Red Bull driver.
Pérez started a dramatic race on the medium tyre from 8th position. He took advantage of the fight between Piastri, Leclerc and himself at turn 1 to move into P6 on the first lap, a pleasure that did not last long since the McLaren retook the sixth position from him on lap six as the sidepod damage started to hamper him as he made contact with the Aussie at turn 4 on the first lap.
Pérez did not manage to climb further positions as he saw his pace decline with the hard tyres (which Red Bull put him on lap 22) and also received a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, resuming eventually the race on lap 52 in tenth place from where he then overtook Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen.
He lost out to Nico Hülkenberg on the last lap. The Haas driver let him through before turn 3 to get DRS, passing him on the run down to T4.
“There was a lot of damage on the sidepod. I think I touched a bit with Piastri in turn 4. I don’t know if it came from there. It was unfortunate because we had a good start, but from then on the car was just nowhere.
“Nothing I could do; I was just off balance. I think also with making the mistake on the way into the pit lane, with the pit limit, it was just a disaster of a race.
“I think with just lacking so much pace out there and sliding around, there was no hope for fighting people ahead.”
The Mexican had an intense battle with Nico Hülkenberg for P6 that was defined until the chequered flag, since the Red Bull driver managed to overtake the German for a moment. However, it was the Haas driver who in the end claimed the 8 points.
“He [Hülkenberg] was alright, I think. He did a mistake into the final corner, I couldn’t get him, I couldn’t get any traction out of turn 3. So he was quite tough towards the end of the race.”
Both Horner and Pérez confirmed the damage to the RB20 #11, which defined Pérez’s struggle for what is considered a fifth consecutive weekend, hopefully aiming for a “more straightforward” race next round in Silverstone.
“It was all over the place, we tried to fix it here and there and it was just nowhere.
“We have got to look back and carefully look at everything. But then I think we had better pace than we showed. I just hope to have a clean weekend and a day where everything can be straightforward.”
