Sergio Perez: “It was really enjoyable…”

Sergio Perez left rivals scartching their heads by taking a stunning second place for Sauber at Monza, having started only 12^th.

The Mexican was the highest placed driver to start on the hard rather than the medium tyres. He was able to find unexpected pace on them, and was able to run a long opening stint as he worked his way up the order.

In the second half of the race he was on the medium tyres while those ahead were on the hard, and on the rubbered-in track, that proved just the ticket. He passed both Ferraris and was closing on winner Lewis Hamilton at the end of the race.

Although Perez and Sauber have pulled off some similarly successful strategies before, rivals struggled to explain the advantage he had.

“It was really enjoyable,” said Perez. “One of those races where you have the pace, and you are the one attacking. It was very crucial moments during the race, especially during my first stint, to go that long and to be able to keep the pace was not easy at all. I did quite a lot of laps on those tyres.

“Then in the second stint we managed to go maximum attack, and I was able to have good fighting with some drivers. It was just a great race.

“With the first stint I was a bit worried, especially with the data we had from Friday. I was a bit worried I was feeling some degradation from the tyres, so I was a bit worried that it was going to drop, that the tyre was going to drop but once I got until lap 20 it was looking really good.

“Before that I was in contact with the team every lap, trying to say that everything was fine. Every lap I asked them to stay in contact every lap, just in case we were in need to change the strategy.”

Perez admitted that qualifying had been something of a mess.

“I don’t think we had the pace in qualifying, on a single lap, to be even close to gaining the front row or close to the top five. We were not quick at all, we were lacking too much speed on the straights, and that was our problem. I’ve been sick all weekend. It’s been difficult, but it did not affect me at all, just yesterday in qualifying I did not have the good lap.

“I was too close to Bruno Senna so I lost a lot of downforce – it was the reason why we qualified just out of the top 10. Maybe top 10 was reachable, but more than that, not. It helped us, in a way, to change the strategy. We risk, I don’t know if we were the only one, or one of a few, to go for prime and it worked quite well. We were a bit worried about the warm up in the beginning, but it worked quite OK.”

Long linked with a future at Maranello, Perez downplayed the fact that he passed two Ferraris.

“I’m fighting for my team and will always fight for the team that I’m in. I will always give my maximum I can. And I will fight any driver, no matter if it’s Fernando or Lewis, I will fight for my team to get the result – and I think every driver will do the same.”