Sergio Perez believes rivals didn’t see the true pace of the updated Force India during the British Grand Prix after the Mexican spent all race behind teammate Esteban Ocon.
It was a sense of deja vu for the hometown team on Sunday with the pit-wall, as they did in Canada, deciding against the use of team orders to allow a driver that appears quicker to move ahead of the other.
Perez fell behind at the start and would emerge behind his teammate after the pit-stop but was faster, as he sat on the gearbox of the Frenchman. Unable to get past, Daniel Ricciardo soon dispatched both of them with Nico Hulkenberg well ahead in the Renault as he claimed sixth, the Williams of Felipe Massa also looked a threat but wouldn’t get close enough as the two so-called ‘pink panthers’ claimed eighth and ninth.
“It was a difficult race and I have a feeling we didn’t get to demonstrate our true pace,” the 27-year-old claimed afterwards. “We should have finished higher, but in the end we still bring home points with both cars.
“I had a poor start and that compromised the rest of the afternoon because I couldn’t recover from it. Silverstone is one of the most difficult tracks on which to overtake, and even though I spent all my race within DRS range of Esteban, I never had a real opportunity to pass him.
“Being so close to the car in front damaged my tyres and cost me lots of downforce so there was nothing I could do.”
The team had brought its biggest upgrade package to the race but any kind of improvement wasn’t noticeable. There also didn’t appear to be any sort of hard feelings about the non-use of team orders, however, perhaps after a spate of recent controversies between the two drivers.
“You can look back at the race and think of things that could have been done differently, but it’s always easy to say this after the race,” Perez merely commented.
With Max Verstappen scoring his first points since Monaco, the former McLaren driver fell back to seventh in the Drivers’ Championship. As the only midfield team to have both cars in the points, however, they further consolidated fourth in the Constructors’ standings, now 54 points clear of Williams.
