Perez was eliminated in Q1 at Zandvoort on Saturday after not driving a final lap in the opening session.
The Mexican was able to fight his way back to eighth place at the checkered flag after overtaking Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris and Esteban Ocon in a late stint on soft tires and making it into the points.
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However, Perez had been forced to an early pit stop after a puncture on his hard tires while attempting to overtake Haas driver Mazepin, and switched to Medium after just eight laps.
Perez then had a clash with Norris in the closing stages when he tried to bypass the outside at Turn 1, which resulted in contact between the two drivers.
While Perez believed the team had managed to minimize the damage after his qualifying setback, he believed that without the two incidents a top six placement would have been possible.
“Our race was very complicated,” explained Perez.
“With Nikita at the beginning, I had a flat tire. He was moving very late when braking and just to avoid him I had a flat tire, I had to come in and basically start our race again and I think that probably cost us P6.
“It was also a sensible race, apart from the contact with Lando, who cost a lot of the right side of the floor, it cost us and I think that cost us P6 too.
“But the positive is of course Max [Verstappen] won the race for the team and we have our new engine, so we’re good for the rest of the year. “
Perez felt that there was “nowhere to go” thanks to Norris’ turn 1 move, which he called “unnecessary”, but the McLaren driver made it clear that he was not ready to just give up the position without a fight.
Nikita Mazepin, Haas VF-21, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B
Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images
“I’m not going to make his life easy, you know?” Said Norris.
“I think we can just be happy driving it. He’s in a Red Bull, he’s in the fastest car on the track.
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“I think every driver, no matter who he is, no matter if we’re just racing against Max or Lewis.” [Hamilton] or whoever is on the line, you have to treat them all equally.
“I’m not going to make life easy for him because I want these points as much as he does.
“So yeah, I tried, I squeezed him a bit, but I didn’t push him off the track or anything, so we both fought hard.
“He pulled back quite a bit at Turn 1 and I just didn’t want to give him a lot of space.
“I gave him enough, just not the whole world. He still managed to come over, neither of us crashed and I think he still passed someone else, so yeah, nothing to say.”
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner praised Perez for a “fantastic” recovery drive after the penalty shoot-out and the flat spot on the first lap.
“He was the only guy I could really overtake,” said Horner.
“To get back into the points there [and score] important points for us today, yes, it was a very strong race for him. “
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