F1 | Red Bull, Sergio Perez: “Difficult race, it's a great result for the team”

From the qualifying disaster to second place in the race: Sergio Perez is certainly one of the happiest on the Imola circuit. The Mexican driver, eighth in Friday's qualifying, managed to recover positions already in the Sprint Race, climbing up to third place. He didn't have to struggle too much in the race, thanks to Charles Leclerc's bad start, which left him with the green light. Perez manages, controls, and even if the Monegasque gets close, he never really risks. Things eased up at the end, when Leclerc lost control of the car, leaving Perez free to enjoy the final laps towards second place. His situation in the world rankings also improves: Perez is third with fifty-four points, five less than teammate Verstappen.

"It was a tough but beautiful race. The number one rule in these conditions is to get to the finish line. It has been difficult – admitted the Mexican – because it's really easy to make a mistake, but we managed to finish the race and stay out of trouble, and that's important. I had a good start, as did the restart and I think the team executed an excellent strategy. With the intermediates I was thinking of going further, but there was too much degradation and Charles was very fast, but I'm happy I kept him behind. The fight with him was intense, he was always within the range necessary for the undercut and when we thought we had the situation under control he returned to the pits, making life difficult for us. We were both pushing on cold tires and, in fairness to Charles, it was really easy to make mistakes. The start of the season was difficult, due to reliability and retirements, today's points are very important, it's a great result for the team".