Racing Point has defended the decision to pit Sergio Perez under the late Safety Car phase at Imola as it believed it would have struggled to hold onto third.
Perez started from 11th place but ran a long first stint on Medium tyres and jumped opponents who had used Soft rubber for the opening period of the race.
It meant Perez was on course for fourth spot, which became third when Max Verstappen suffered a tyre failure, the result of which triggered a Safety Car phase.
Racing Point opted to bring in Perez for a set of Soft tyres but opponents stayed out and he slipped to sixth spot.
Perez overhauled Alexander Albon but also lost a position to Daniil Kvyat – who also came in for Softs – and classified in sixth.
He later suggested that Racing Point had “handed the podium” to Daniel Ricciardo and the team went on to explain the decision-making process.
“The race was going our way completely up until the Safety Car,” said Racing Point’s technical boss Andrew Green.
“Checo had manoeuvred himself with great pace up to fourth really, overtook the pack by going longer, car was really strong, we were very happy with how it was going.
“The worst possible scenario was a Safety Car, that was not really how we were geared up unfortunately, it was always going to be a difficult situation.
“We were on Hards, the car had been set up for the long runs, we were incredibly nervous about having to restart on the Hard tyres behind the Safety Car and I think we would have struggled.
“The safest and logical thing to do we thought was to switch him to a set of Softs, we thought others might do the same.”
Green also felt that George Russell’s crash behind the Safety Car, which prolonged the neutralised period, accentuated Racing Point’s prospects.
“It probably just showed where our race pace was as we put the car to be kind to the tyres, we were always going to struggle behind the Safety Car,” he said,
“Then there was the second incident behind the Safety Car so the number of laps left to overtake was shortened again by a considerable margin.
“With hindsight we would have made a different decision but with the info we had it was a decision we came to.”
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