Perez rues costly Monaco damage

Perez, Sainz, Red Bull, Ferrari, Monaco, 2022 — Photo: © LAT Images

Monaco Grand prix

Perez rues costly Monaco damage

Perez caused red flags to fly and bring qualifying to a premature close

Sam Hall

Saturday 28 May 2022 21:05 Updated: 11:37

Sergio Perez has conceded the damage to his Red Bull "looked bad" after crashing in the closing stages of qualifying at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Perez will start third for Sunday's race in the principality but his mechanics face a long night to repair heavy damage sustained after the Mexican clouted the barriers at Portier.

Following the initial impact, just moments later Perez was hit by Carlos Sainz as the Ferrari driver was unable to react quickly enough to avoid contact.

Asked for his initial assessment of the damage, Perez conceded: "It looked bad.

"Certainly, it looked bad from the rear and what made it worse was the hit we got from Carlos, so we have quite a bit of damage but we will see. I think we should be okay for tomorrow."

Perez has shown strong pace across the weekend which resulted in him topping final practice.

Explaining what had caused his spin, the Red Bull driver said: "Turn eight has been a difficult one for me throughout the qualifying session so I was trying to anticipate and get onto the throttle quite early.

"But as soon as I touched the throttle, I could feel the rear tyre was not gripping and I was playing with it a little bit until I lost it. I was actually surprised that Carlos hit me.

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"It was a shame what happened and I feel sorry for Carlos and for the rest of the guys, but this is Monaco."

Red Bull tyre strategy wrong

Perez has declared himself personally "okay" after being taken to the medical centre as the impact was enough for him to require checks.

"There was a technical issue apparently because the G I got was something like 20 but it is quite a low-speed section and luckily there are Tecpro [barriers] there," assessed Perez.

"It is just a shame what happened because I think we had more pace than that but we just couldn't challenge.

"The strategy with the tyres, especially the final set, it wasn't up to temperature and it was just too peaky.

"I nearly lost it already into turn one and in hindsight, we didn't get it right today."