Perez "very lucky" to have huge crowd support in difficult home race

Sergio Perez finished 8th in front of his home crowd but felt that more was possible. He was doing a one-stop strategy whilst others around him were stopping twice. However, a safety car meant that others around him were on fresh tyres in the final stages of the race.

“It was one of my toughest races, I can tell you,” Perez said, “When the safety car pitted and I found out that the people in front had new tyres and the people behind had new tyres I was like “Why didn’t we pit?” but I think we had some kind of confusion, because we thought we could have gained a position to Hulkenberg and Massa but we are measuring things wrong because we weren’t even close to that.

“In the end, sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not and in the past we’ve been lucky with safety cars. Today we were not so lucky. But in the end it’s less important, for me, the result because what we managed to achieve today is more than the result.”

It was clear who the crowd were supporting, as a huge cheer followed Perez around every lap he did throughout the weekend.

“I could feel [the crowd], I could really feel their energy,” he added, “It was a very tough race, the strategy was not the ideal one and there were so many factors that went in the wrong direction. But other than that it’s been a fantastic weekend.

“It’s a weekend that I will remember forever, and when I have my kids I will show the video from the most special lap I did in Formula One, which was with the home crowd. I’m a very lucky driver to have had this sort of support from my country.”

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