Formula 1 Racing

Perez rues VSC after falling short of podium places in Hungary · RaceFans

Sergio Perez, Red Bull, Hungaroring, 2022

In the round-up: Sergio Perez believed going from eleventh to third in Hungary was possible were it not for a late-race neutralisation.

In brief

Could Perez have matched Verstappen’s charge?

Red Bull had a lot of work to do with their two cars starting 10th and 11th for the Hungarian Grand Prix, but Max Verstappen was able to climb nine places to win. His team mate Sergio Perez rose into fifth place a few laps after Verstappen took the lead, but then he made no further progress.

Once those who would finish ahead ahead had pitted, Perez had a 15.4-second gap to a podium result to make up during his final stint, and he had closed that down to 5.3s prior to a two-lap Virtual Safety Car period. Green flag action resumed on the race’s last lap, leaving him with little time to reduce the gap further and he ended up finishing fifth.

“On the second stint, we were looking to do the one-stop,” he explained. “So we didn’t push as hard, and just towards the end I think we had pretty good pace, especially under this cold, cold weather. But unfortunately I just missed out on the podium. George and Carlos was within a couple of seconds. I think without the VSC it would have been a lot closer.”

Haas “couldn’t switch on” hard tyre

Haas’s drivers were not impressed with Pirelli’s hard compound tyre available at the Hungarian GP, with both using it during the race and only returning negative feedback.

“I think at some point it felt like it [was possible to score], but then we put on the C2 [hard tyre] and things changed pretty quickly,” said Mick Schumacher. “That C2 just didn’t work for us, especially the rear tyres. It never really seemed to switch on, and therefore we kind of tried to go off it and then go on to the C3. The last three laps were tough.

“I was hoping that the tyre would improve at some point, but it just never did. So it felt like ice in the rear for most part of the stint, really. And then I put the medium on and everything felt a lot better.”

His team mate Kevin Magnussen expected Haas to be stronger in the race than qualifying but was proven wrong. “The hards didn’t work, couldn’t switch them on,” he said. “So I was driving around on cold tyres and then we swapped to medium. It was a bit better, but mostly the pace wasn’t there in the race so we’ve got to try to understand why.”

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