“It hurts because we did everything we could,” says Sergio Perez of the badly timed safety car that cost him the race » FirstSportz

Sergio Perez, who started the second race of the 2022 season, the Saudi Arabian GP, ​​as polesitter, finished P4 as his race suffered massively from the yellow flag and safety car deployed after Nicholas Latifi crashed into the last bend of the route. The Red Bull driver had Pitter just one lap earlier while the other drivers were under the safety car on Pitter.

Under the safety car, drivers such as Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz achieved an advantage of about 8 seconds over Checo, who found himself in fourth place after the safety car because he had to give up his third place to Carlos Sainz who died box left. All of this together proved disastrous for him.

The Red Bull driver told Sky Sports F1 when discussing this whole situation: “We had the undercut and margin we were looking for, we got it, and things were looking really good, but unfortunately Latifi put them in the wall at the wrong time for me. This is racing. It will come for us one day but it hurts because we did everything we could to win this race from pole.”

Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz’s take on the situation

Perez, whose undercut on Carlos Sainz failed when the safety car was reversed, had to give up his third place to the Ferrari driver. Speaking of this situation, he said: “I was told to return the house, so I returned it. I thought that was fair enough.”

“I think I picked up the pace a bit after the virtual safety car. I got close but then in the finals there were yellow flags so I had to slow down and there wasn’t much I could do.” he concluded.

Carlos Sainz, who benefited enormously from the safety car and successfully maintained his third place, said: “It was a close decision there with Checo but in the end I think he was obviously a bit unlucky with a safety car but the rules are the rules. I think I was just ahead on the safety car line, that was my position back then and it’s been about holding P3 ever since.”

The race was eventful and intense. We saw great fights and a lot of falls over the weekend. The track proved to be as fast as last year’s Saudi Arabian GP and Sergio Perez would definitely be looking for redemption next year.

ALSO READ: GP Saudi Arabia 2022: Three winners from the second race of the season