“I was about to jump out of the car”- Sergio Perez reveals what he felt when a car failure almost spoiled his Red Bull debut.
Sergio Perez had a stroke of tough luck during the qualifying, and now that ill-fate remained with him until the start of the race, as his car stopped in the middle of the formation lap.
The Mexican reveals that he was about to jump out of the car to quit the race, but the team’s last second instruction made him continue ahead.
“In the middle of the corner, everything just shut down,” Perez explained. He said he had “no idea” what caused the stoppage and was about to give up hope of starting the race when the team’s sporting director Jonathan Wheatley came on his radio.
“I was about to jump out of the car, and all of a sudden, I start to [hear] Jonathan. I just turned on the car, and it kept going,” said Perez. “It was [hard] getting the ignition back. I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t hear the engineers, and then it went back, so that was good.”
Still became the driver of the day.
Despite the setbacks, Perez manages to pull an incredible fight, as, from the last of the grid, he sealed a P5, making him win votes to be the driver of the day.
“I was pleased just by the fact that we managed to get those kilometres under my belt,” he said. “Yesterday missing Q3 really delayed our progression because, through qualifying, we can see that things are starting to click better.”
“It’s a real shame that I didn’t maximise yesterday, but I think today things are starting to click a bit more lap by lap.” Perez overall is happy with the pace of Red Bull and is optimistic about the future.
“I think that’s a positive bit, that the race pace is strong. But it’s just so many things that are still clicking. I think at the moment everything comes together,” he said.
“We’re going to be pretty strong, but we have to be solid and get the pace done properly. And then it should be pretty good.”
