Sergio Perez has singled out his “terrible start” to the Formula 1 Sao Paulo Sprint race as the reason for his deficit to Lando Norris across the line.
The Red Bull driver finished third in Saturday’s shortened race, the same in which he had started the 24-lap affair.
However, the Mexican driver made his afternoon tougher than expected when he was swamped by George Russell off the line. He was then also passed by a second Mercedes when Lewis Hamilton passed the Red Bull around the outside of Turn 4.
While Perez was able to reclaim his lost positions by Lap 10, he was unable to claw back the time lost to Lando Norris, ending up 9.3s behind the McLaren.
The Red Bull driver believes he took too much out of his Soft rubber when squabbling over fourth position with Hamilton.
“Yeah, it was not an easy one, I had a terrible start, ended up losing place to George. And then another place to Lewis into Turn 4,” Perez said in review of his Sprint.
“From then on, I was fighting. I had to use my tyres a lot. And then I think I paid the price towards the end.”
“Overall, it’s been a good day. Good points there. But unfortunately, I think without the start we could have been a lot further up,” he said after finishing 13 seconds back of Sprint winner and team-mate Max Verstappen.
“The problem I had was that I couldn’t manage. I had to push. And we know that this place is very sensitive for that. It ended up costing us.
Perez entered the Brazil weekend off the back of a disastrous ending to his home race last time out in Mexico.
Race-ending contact at Turn 1 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez enabled Hamilton to narrow hi hold of second in the Drivers’ standings to 20 points.
With the pressure mounting on the 33-year-old, strong points performances at the Interlagos venue have taken on increased importance.
“Obviously, it’s important,” Perez said after extending his championship lead over Hamilton to 24 points.
“But it’s more important to keep that momentum going now, we had a very good day overall.
“Hopefully tomorrow, which is the main race, we can consolidate with a strong result.”
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