The Red Bull driver recovered to a decent P6 after a disastrous Qualifying session on Saturday in Silverstone. Perez didn’t manage to make the cut to Q2, but actually lined up in P15 for the race due to Valtteri Bottas’s DSQ.
At the beginning of the race, Perez remained stuck in P15 also due to contact made on the opening lap with Ocon, but the 33-year-old entered the top ten by Lap 17. Taking advantage of some retirements and a good move on Alonso, the Mexican driver ended the British GP in P6.
Perez was rather disappointed as he said after the end of the race:
“I had a great launch, but then I was pushed out by Ocon on Lap 1, and I lost positions instead of gaining them, so it just made the recovery harder. I used too much my tyres in that first stint, and then we boxed three laps before the Safety Car.
“So it wasn’t meant to be, but in the end we gave it all and we did what was possible to get through it.”
Not only his first lap collision didn’t allow him to recover positions, but also left him with a “chipped” front wing :“I was lucky not to get a puncture, but yeah, just a little racing incident.”
Photo credit: Oracle Red Bull Racing
“It was really hard to make progress, especially at the end, when everyone is on the same tyre age, there is no tyre degradation it was very difficult to make any progress, because following at high speeds is quite tricky,” added Perez, forced into a recovery drive at the past 5 races, during which he never reached Q3 in qualifying.
For great part of his race, the Red Bull driver was stuck in a DRS train of cars, simply unable to complete a move, which definitely didn’t please him:
“When you want to follow, the downforce just makes it harder, but I think that if we had a few more laps we could have finished a little bit higher.”
Asked on what he believes to be the reason behind his less than ideal Qualifying performances in the last few races, Perez mentioned his driving style and car feeling, and that he will take advantage of the gap to the next Hungarian round to try and improve with the aid of his team and technology:
“I think I might just have become a little too sensitive to the car in the last few races, especially on Saturdays on low fuel, it’s something that I am going to work on already from tomorrow in the simulator with the team, I have some ideas, but we are operating in such a small window of detail.”
However, the two-time winner in 2023 is determined to find that little “something” that could bring him back to scoring pole positions and wins, like he was doing at the beginning of the season:
“We just need a strong Saturday. The positive thing is that the pace is there on Sundays, where at the end of the day is when the points are given, but we just have to sort out a clean weekend, because the pace is there,” he concluded.
