Windsor understands Perez, but: 'Expensive points thrown away in Mexico'
F1 News
How would Sergio Perez have slept after the Mexico Grand Prix? In his native country, the Red Bull Racing driver had wanted to take the best win of his career. It wasn't a trophy, but a seat in the pit box, from where he watched his teammate Max Verstappen take his 16th win of the season.
It was a weekend with the pressure on Sergio Perez's shoulders. Over three days, 400,000 mostly Mexicans passed through the gates of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, all hoping that their national hero would be the best in the Mexican Grand Prix. "The adrenaline would have been pumping like crazy," analyst Peter Windsor said.
'Perez hoped to drop out of Verstappen and Leclerc'
"He saw Max going for that gap and succeeding in doing it. He had the momentum on Charles Leclerc, he got the slipstream on Charles Leclerc, he moved to the left, so he's effectively on the outside now, going into that first corner. But what was Charles Leclerc going to do? He had Max on his right-hand side, who's just overtook him. He was just going to stay in the middle of the road and go round into Turn 1, as he did. And there was Sergio Perez thinking, right, I can pass Charles Leclerc on the outside going into Turn 1, with the entire pack behind me. I'm not sure he thought it through that much. I think he just saw a potential bit of spare bit of road that he could go for."
In doing so, Perez did need some help from Leclerc and Verstappen, who needed to back off. They both did not, so according to Windsor, a collision was unavoidable. "What a missed opportunity. Because with the pace that Red Bull had today, absolutely no doubt that Perez would have been second in that race, had he just sat behind the two Ferraris."
WIndsor watched Christian Horner put his arm around Perez, signalling his understanding that Perez was going for the gap. But the analyst wonders aloud if Helmut Marko is as forgiving... "I don't know how Helmut Marko will see that one, because putting aside all the national stuff and being the Mexican hero. And how important the Mexican Grand Prix is to Red Bull as well, because they have Mexican sponsors on the car. Putting all that to one side, it was a lot of lost points today."