Sergio Perez’s 11th place finish was “more than annoying” for Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko after the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
After surprising many by beating teammate Max Verstappen to P2 in qualifying, Sunday was a damp squib in the rain as Checo lost two places at the start, was penalised for overtaking behind the Safety Car after running off track, and then spun again shortly after the red flag restart, dropping out of the points.
“I’m very, very sorry first of all to my team because I wasn’t there today,” Perez said post-race.
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“There were very poor conditions which meant that I struggled to put any temperature into my tyres, so therefore the car was very difficult to drive.
“Even under the Safety Car, I went off, I came back and I got the penalty for that, which meant I lost the position to Norris and that made things trickier.
“At the end, I think we should have finished on the podium, but unfortunately I did that mistake and that was very costly.”
And on a day when at one stage it looked like Mercedes could go scoreless, to only make up six points on the Brackley-based team – after Lewis Hamilton recovered to P2 with the fastest lap – was seen as a missed opportunity by Red Bull.
“He had such a good Saturday, the race just didn’t go his way this afternoon,” team boss Christian Horner commented.
“[He made] a couple of little mistakes, especially the spin behind the Ferrari, I think it was Carlos, so tough for him because we should have taken a lot more points out of Mercedes today, but good pace in the race and there’s still a long, long way to go.”
However, Marko was his typically less consolatory self.
“[After qualifying,] we thought that everything would fit,” he told Servus TV.
“I think he didn’t manage to get the tyres up to temperature right away like Max did. Of course, 11th place is more than annoying.
“Above all, the spin at the restart cost him everything, basically, it was a very bad day with a bad performance.”
Horner though continued to focus on the positives, predicting better times ahead as the Mexican gains experience in the Red Bull.
“It’s just time in the seat. It’s different to what he’s used to,” he told Formula1.com.
“He did a mega job yesterday to put it on the front row, only just missed out on that pole position and there’s great races to come from him in the future.
“You could see in clean air his pace was strong; he just got caught in that DRS train at the end there. But yeah, it was a tough day for all of them today.”