Sergio Perez admits the boost to his confidence from recovering to third place in the Hungarian Grand Prix was needed as he targets podiums for the rest of the season.
Perez reached Q3 in qualifying for the first time since Miami – a run of five races without doing so – but he still only lined up ninth after a tricky final part of the session. However, in the race, the Mexican pulled off some robust overtaking moves to climb into third place and briefly threaten Lando Norris for second.
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“I think this sort of performance, sort of days, do help,” Perez said of his confidence. “From now on I just look forward to basically be on the podium every single weekend.
“We got close to P2. Unfortunately, we got to a lot of backmarkers. The track was unbelievably dirty off-line, so in the last laps I had some pick-up going through the backmarkers and then yeah, that meant I lost a few seconds, and then I recovered towards the end but it was just too late – but anyway, I think overall it was a great strategy by the team and we managed to have an excellent result.”
Perez had been closing in on Norris in the final stint of the race but then came under pressure from Lewis Hamilton and admits he was struggling with the marbles whenever overtaking slower cars in traffic.
“It was quite difficult because we were going through the backmarkers, Lando and myself, I was chasing Lando, but going offline, I had two very bad laps just cleaning up my tires. And that was when Lewis was coming up, but luckily, they cleaned up and I think towards the end I had him under control.
“We were doing sort of similar (lap times) or a few tenths off, but not enough to be overtaken, so it was good. Unfortunately we pitted on the same lap as (Oscar) Piastri, so I think I had to use my tires a lot harder than I wanted to.”
The Piastri battle saw the Australian rookie fight back around the outside of Turn 2 and end up being run wide by Perez, who admits he had to race the McLaren firmly.
“We were on very similar age tires, basically we pitted at the same lap. So we were on fresh tires, I went for it around the outside. We touched into T1 and then into T2 we touched again. So it was a little bit close but hard racing, I would say.”