“It’s a shame to miss the podium” – Sergio Pérez

Sergio Perez was frustratingly close to a podium at the Italian Grand Prix, if it weren’t for a five-second penalty Monza National Autodrome.

The Mexican, who started the race in eighth place, fought hard the whole time that Red Bull Racing Driver made great strides early on and has benefited massively from Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen take each other out.

Pérez quickly found himself in the top 5 and had a real chance of a podium when the safety car phase for the fall of his title rival came to an end. Then came the topic of conversation for Pérez, who overtook Mexicans Charles Leclerc for third place in turn five, but was considered an unfair advantage over the Ferrari driver. Pérez ran off the track at turn five and over the curbs to make the pass, which was clearly illegal overtaking.

Pérez did not return the position and was therefore given a five-second time penalty which, when added to his target time, downgraded him from third to fifth. The Mexican was disappointed with the penalty and believed he was ahead of Leclerc, Pérez also congratulated his former team on the McLaren F1 team on their victory,

“It was a very eventful race and a real shame to miss out on the podium. I think we were hoping for a broader perspective with the penalty in the sense that it was my corner and I was ahead of Charles but it’s what it is and we tried to recover. On our part, we drove the best possible race as a team, but overtaking was not possible today and it was really difficult to stay in front of the cars behind.

“McLaren was really quick and hard to beat, they were solid this weekend and especially on the straights they were hard to follow. They had very strong traction so I couldn’t pose a threat to them at any point, but as a team this wasn’t our track, we weren’t that strong here so let’s go ahead and look forward to Russia. There is still a long way to go in this championship. “