“I paid a high price for it.” Coming from Sergio Perez, does this sound familiar? Maybe something he said at the Mexican GP last weekend? After many, many weeks of underperforming and losing out where he shouldn’t have, Perez finally looked back in form in Mexico, in front of his home crowd. Starting the race in P5, he got a great start off the line and saw the chance to take the lead into Turn 1. The move was optimistic. He knew that. But leading his home race was at stake, and he didn’t want to let that go. All it ended was in disaster.  

Following his premature retirement from the Mexican GP, Perez said, “I took a risk. I paid a high price for it.” A dejected Perez came into the Brazilian GP weekend with high hopes. Leading up to the Sprint, it looked like he’d continued his form from Mexico. But even after a strong showing, he wasn’t happy. But someone else was.

Validation didn’t make things better for Sergio Perez

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko hasn’t always been the most supportive when it comes to Perez. Considering he’s publicly stated—on multiple occasions—that Perez’s seat isn’t safe for 2024, apart from also making xenophobic comments about the Mexican, you can understand Marko’s feelings about Perez. Surprisingly, though, he had only nice things to say about him after the Sprint at the Brazilian GP.

After qualifying in P3 for the 100km race, Perez lost a couple of positions in the beginning, but he recovered back to P3. That’s where he finished the race, about 15 seconds off Max Verstappen in P1. With Verstappen in P1, him in P3, Yuki Tsunoda in P6, and Daniel Ricciardo in P9, Marko couldn’t have been happier. In an interview with ServusTV, as reported by F1Maximaal, Marko said, “Sergio did a great job of overtaking, and Yuki drove a nice race. Daniel was just one lap short. All in all, we can be very satisfied with four cars in the top nine.” [Translated by Google]

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Despite the praise from Marko, Perez couldn’t help but think about what could’ve been. As quoted by F1Maximaal, the Mexican said, “It’s a good result, definitely, but I would have liked more. We had a terrible start and a terrible first lap, where we lost two places to the Mercedes drivers. I had to ask a lot of my tires when I regained those places. I quickly paid the price for that.” Although Perez is known for his tire preservation skills, even he couldn’t do much with his soft tires after having to fight his way back to P3.

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This wasn’t the first time this weekend that the Mexican wasn’t happy with how things turned out for him.

Sergio Perez lost out in qualifying on Friday

Perez was looking like the Perez of old in Brazil. Considering that, he was hoping to stay in touch with Verstappen and help his own chances in the fight for P2 against Lewis Hamilton. Unfortunately for him, things didn’t go his way on Friday. Once Q3 started—in typical Interlagos fashion—the possibility of rain started increasing too. As seconds ticked by, teams figured their drivers would only get one proper flying lap before the rain hit. That’s precisely what happened.

With the cooling track temperatures and the lack of grip, drivers were sliding around, trying to stitch up a good lap. While Verstappen managed to slot his RB19 into P1, Perez fell prey to a late spin by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, and could only manage a P9. In a post-qualifying interview, he said, “We were just incredibly unlucky today. I should have been on the front row. My lap was very close to Max’s until the final corner. And then I found Piastri so I had to backup my lap and that meant being nowhere.”

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How do you think Sergio Perez will fair in Sunday’s race at the Brazilian GP?