“It was all about getting both cars as high as possible”- Sergi Perez contemplates on Racing Point’s strategy after Lance Stroll pit-stop blunder.
Racing Point till the half number of laps was running the show during the Turkish Grand Prix, with Lance Stroll cruising for his first-ever Formula 1 Grand Prix win.
But destiny had other plans for him as his dying tyres compelled Racing Point to make him box when his teammate was breathing down his neck, which didn’t go well with Stroll.
The Canadian driver’s new intermediate tyres grained quickly made him lose his solid momentum, making him fall back to 9th position by the end of the race.
Speaking on the incident, Sergio Perez has said that the team’s main objective was to end up as high as possible, and there were no team orders between the two cars.
“No, we are in a fight for third in the constructors, and that’s really what matters to us,” Perez said. “So it was all about getting both cars as high as possible.
“I think the lead car at the time was Lance and at that time, we thought the best was to stop. That didn’t work out for him, but in the end, we managed to score good points. We outscored our competition and there are still three very important races for us in the championship.”
“It was all about surviving”- Perez benefitted from the feedback by Stroll
Though Stroll’s race was ruined by that pit-stop, his predicament helped Racing point to make Perez finish as high as possible due to the feedback obtained by Stroll on the intermediate tyres.
“It was all about surviving on those inters, we were a bit stuck,” Perez explained. “We were expecting some more rain towards the end of the race, and at the same time, we were suffering quite a bit with the inters.
“We were going through the graining phase, and I was able to control it after that. When he pitted, I was also [thinking of] the idea of trying another set because my set was pretty worn out.
“But then the team informed me that he grained straight away, and the pace was not coming so we decided to stay out. But in hindsight, probably, even how much we suffered in the final laps, we probably could have pitted for another set.”
