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Sergio Perez has revealed a potential car problem could have been the cause of his lacklustre weekend in Austria.
Perez reveals car issue behind ‘difficult’ Austria performance (Image Credit: Red Bull Content Pool/Getty Images)Coming into the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, the Mexican urgently needed to turn his fortunes around. In a similar trend to 2023, Perez started 2024 competitively, comfortably the nearest challenger to an imperious Max Verstappen. Three-second places in the first five races indicated that the issues that dogged his 2023 campaign were now a distant memory.
However, Perez has struggled since the announcement of a contract extension. A Q1 elimination and retirement in Monaco and Canada followed the announcement, the latter due to a high-profile crash in Montreal. Improvement led to a P8 finish in Spain, while teammate Max Verstappen won the race.
Austria provided a potential reset for Perez to get his season back on track, particularly at Red Bull’s home circuit. However, he once again struggled, qualifying P7 for the sprint race and falling to P8 by the chequered flag, unable to move up the order.
He remained in the lower top ten during qualifying for Sunday’s race, starting P8. But his hopes of a strong performance quickly evaporated after contact with Oscar Piastri’s McLaren on the first lap. The two cars met at turn four, and Piastri needed to take to the gravel as a result. Although able to continue, Perez struggled to move up the order following the incident, finishing P7.
First-lap damage causes pace drop off
However, Perez revealed that the clash with Piastri significantly impacted his race. Speaking to formula1.com after the race, Perez said substantial damage to his sidepod compromised his afternoon and any hopes of reaching the leaders:
“Unfortunately we ended up picking [up] a lot of damage into Turn 4, I think that was with Piastri, and the sidepod was completely destroyed.
“I just had no load out there, I was sliding like a duck all over the place, didn’t matter which compound, which stage of the race. I was just trying everything with the tools but, yeah, it was a really difficult race out there.”
When asked when his luck will turn around, Perez was pragmatic: “I mean, we’ve seen the light and then, all of a sudden, all the things [happen]… to pick up this damage.”
Reflecting on a lost opportunity, Perez said had the first lap clash not occurred, his race would likely have been more competitive: “I think the race pace was looking good. I could keep up with the people ahead in the early stages with the damage so it’s a massive shame. We just couldn’t get the maximum out of the race today.”