Podium heartbreak "hard to take" but "irrelevant" after Romain Grosjean incident - Sergio Perez

Bahrain Grand Prix

Podium heartbreak "hard to take" but "irrelevant" after Grosjean incident - Perez

Perez retired from a podium position with just three laps remaining

Sam Hall

Monday 30 November 2020 15:55

Sergio Perez was "gutted" to miss out on a podium in Bahrain when his car stopped three laps from the finish but said the result felt "almost irrelevant" following Romain Grosjean's terrifying crash.

Perez's Racing Point machine ground to a halt with just three laps remaining in an incident-packed Bahrain Grand Prix. He was sitting in third and set to secure his second consecutive podium finish after taking second place in Turkey.

An electrical issue with his MGU-K caused the failure and he said: "It’s really hard for both myself and the team to take today’s result, but in the grand scheme of things, it almost becomes irrelevant after Romain’s crash at the start.

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"At the end of the day, it’s either one more or one less podium or trophy for me, but the important thing is that Romain is still with us and that he’s ok. I wish him all the best."

Perez admitted it was "hard to get back into the car" after witnessing the incident, but was impressed by how his team recovered focus and executed a "perfect race" until the result was stolen from him.

Perez's team-mate Lance Stroll also failed to finish, after a collision with Daniil Kyat led him to roll his car on the first lap after the re-start.

The points-less result cost the team their third-place position in the championship and has now left them 17 points off new third-placed team McLaren and 10 ahead of Renault.

"The podium was definitely ours – it was going to be one of my best in Formula 1," said Perez. "We were going to finish ahead of a Red Bull and a Mercedes, which is a great credit to all of us at the team, and we’d done such a good job all weekend too.

"We’ve lost out on some really important points today, which makes it a bit more difficult in the drivers’ and constructors’ championship battles, but the positive is that there are still two more races to make up for it.”