By Erwin Quinonez
Aug 27, 2023, 16:21 PM EDT
The Mexican driver Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez, regretted not having been able to finish on the podium of the Netherlands Grand Prix, which ended this Sunday with his teammate from the Red Bulls team, Max Verstappen, as the winner and current leader of the classification of the Formula One World Cup.
Pérez, second in the World Cup standings, let his dissatisfaction with the result be known, as he assures that he deserved to have finished on the podium and not in fourth position, something for which he accused the decisions he made, which were not entirely correct. , and to the “sudden” rain.
“We have good pace and it was clear that we deserved the podium today; so it’s a shame we didn’t make it,” said the 33-year-old.
“It has been a very unfortunate afternoon, in the end, especially with the last decisions: the first one was good, but when we stopped to put the intermediate (tires) at the end, everything was not ready because I had to make the decision after it started to rain suddenly,” he added.
In this sense, he explained that the rain was a negative factor for the sanction he received, which ended up influencing him to be left off the podium, which would also have become his thirty-fourth in F1,
“When I was coming into pit lane to set up the intermediaries I was completely inundated. I lost traction in the car and ended up touching the wall, before sliding a bit, which caused me to exceed the permitted speed limit,” said the native of Guadalajara, Mexico.
Meanwhile, the Red Bulls driver acknowledged that the result wasn’t too bad, taking all factors into account. “You always know more things after the race, but in general terms the result is ‘ok’ considering the chaos that occurred this afternoon”, he specified.
“The team always has a broader vision when they are making decisions in the race; and I don’t have all the information in the car. That is why we have strategists and everyone makes decisions for the benefit of the team,” Pérez added.