Racing Point defend throwing away Sergio Perez's Imola podium

Racing Point

Racing Point defend throwing away Perez's Imola podium

Mexican pitted behind the safety car

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Tuesday 3 November 2020 08:34

Racing Point technical director Andrew Green is adamant the decision to pit Sergio Perez from a near-certain podium at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was the right call despite conceding that with hindsight he would have kept the Mexican out.

Perez had used his trademark tyre-saving strategy to overcut the entire midfield to fourth, a position which turned into a podium berth when Max Verstappen suffered a tyre failure with 13 laps to go.

But with track position on a circuit at which it had proven difficult to overtake, Racing Point pulled Perez - who leaves the team at the end of the season - to switch to a set of soft tyres, a decision he said "made no sense".

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Although Perez made up some of the lost ground to finish sixth, it was an opportunity wasted for the team as Renault leapfrogged them into third in the constructors' championship courtesy of Daniel Ricciardo's fortuitous podium.

Green explained that the set-up of the RP20 at Imola prompted the pit-stop as the team wanted to ensure Perez could utilise peak tyre performance.

"The race was going our way completely, up until the safety car," he said. "Checo had manoeuvered himself with great pace up to fourth, overtook the pack by going longer on the medium tyres.

"He drove really well, the car was really strong. We were very pleased with where it was going and 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 decision that one. We were on the hard tyres. The car had been set up quite specifically for the long runs for the race and we were incredibly nervous about having to restart the hard tyres after the safety car. I think we would have struggled.

"So the safest thing to do, and we thought the most logical thing to do, was to swap him for a set of the new softer tyres so we didn't have to worry about that."

The safety car period was prolonged after Geroge Russell crashed his Williams whilst warming up his tyres behind Bernd Meylander on the exit of Piratella.

Green pointed to this extended break, added to the fact others did not enter the pits, as variables that exaggerated the error of stopping Perez.

"We thought other people might do the same, but a lot depends on how they were set up for the race," he explained.

"I think it just showed where our race pace was because we set up to look after our tyres, be kind and not overheat them. So we were always going to struggle behind the safety car in that situation.

"Then you have all the other things like the second incident behind the safety car which we couldn't have predicted, so the number of laps remaining to overtake was shortened again by a considerable margin.

"I think that worked against us. In hindsight, we would have made a different decision but at the time, with the information we had, that was the decision we came to."

Before you go...

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