Sergio Perez says Red Bull told him he would get his place back after letting Max Verstappen overtake him early in the Spanish Grand Prix.
It proved to be the first of two occasions on which Perez was instructed to let Verstappen overtake him.
“On the first stint when I let Max by I was told that I was going to get it back and we knew we were on different strategies,” Perez said after the race.
Perez was running behind Verstappen and George Russell early in the race. Verstappen then spun and rejoined the track behind his team mate.
After Perez made several attempts to pass Russell, his race engineer Hugh Bird told him: “Okay Checo let Max have a shot. Let him through before four.”
Perez asked for “one more lap” but was told: “Let’s give him a shot now. We’ll pay it back later.”
Verstappen was unable to pass Russell at first due to an intermittent problem with his DRS. Red Bull therefore moved him onto a three-stop strategy while Perez, who was later able to pass Russell, pitted twice.
That put Perez back in front of Verstappen, who closed rapidly after his third pit stop. Perez was again told to give up the lead of the race to Verstappen, who went on to win.
“When I was back on it I felt like I could have gone through [Russell] and probably give a better shot at my strategy to make it work,” Perez added. “But at the end of the day, it turned out to be the three-stop the way to go today.”
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The three-stop strategy gave “a better race time of the various strategies”, said Perez. “So I think if I went in that direction I would have won the race. And it worked out for Max.
“I think that was something we discussed, it was good because we didn’t know at the time which strategy was going to be the best one.”
He said he would have had a chance of making his two-stop strategy work had he been able to get his position back from Verstappen the first…