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Top image courtesy of FIA/F1
Sergio Perez disregarded a call to pit with two laps to go in the Styrian Grand Prix, allowing him to salvage a sixth-place finish thanks to his pace with significant front wing damage.
The Racing Point driver was almost 15.5s clear of Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll and Lando Norris when he dived up the inside of Alex Albon at Turn 4 on lap 69 before making contact with him at the exit of the corner.
After Perez’s front-left wheel brushed off Albon’s, his front wing caught the wheel of the Red Bull, twisting the whole mainplane and damaging the support pillars.
Fortunately, the wing did not detatch but it did remain askew and tilted backwards with the right endplate forward of its normal position, so Perez was able to continue.
“I understeered a bit towards the exit,” Perez told Sky Sports F1 after the race.
“I’m opening up the steering wheel when picking up the power and then I broke the whole front wing. I was very lucky just to lose one position from that.
“I had to give it a go, especially because we were pushing flat out with all that we had and that was the only opportunity probably I was going to have.”
Perez reported he had front-wing damage at Turn 7, but not the extent of it, and was asked if he was coming in by race engineer Tim Wright.
Wright, then said “box, box…if the front wing is too bad” as Perez entered Turn 9, with the Mexican staying on track knowing he was only two laps away from the finish.
Had he committed to the pit entry when he first heard the words “box, box” – an understandable call from the pits where it appeared likely the front wing might come away entirely given the extent of the damage and create an unsafe situation – he would not have finished sixth and would have been eighth at best, depending on how long it took to change the front wing.
Perez and Wright then concentrated on managing the gap to the cars behind. Having started the penultimate lap 12.669s clear of Ricciardo, Perez asked for an update on how much time he had in hand while on the run to Turn 3.
He was then warned “Checo, you’ve got no front wing, be very careful”, indicating how badly the front aero load had been affected, before he again asked for the gap and was told he had 12 seconds but with the lapped AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly behind.
Crucially on this lap, the battle behind stemmed some of the time losses. By the end of the second sector, he was still 11.926s clear of sixth place – now held by Norris – thanks to the time lost by that group when Stroll dived up the inside of Ricciardo at Turn 3.
In the final sector, Wright gave him the instruction to “go rearward on brake balance” to mitigate the impact the loss of front-end downforce on braking, an adjustment Perez made immediately.
At the end of the lap, Perez still had 11.926s over Stroll, with the battle behind meaning that the 70th lap was critical in allowing the hobbled Racing Point to minimise the positions lost.
The extent of the performance lost is indicated by the fact he was around 6.5s slower on the penultimate lap than on a quick race lap in normal circumstances.
Approaching Turn 3, Perez was warned there was a group of three cars behind Gasly headed by Stroll, then before Turn 4 told “do not use the kerbs” to try and protect the front wing.
Perez held the car wide in Turn 6 to let the AlphaTauri go and was warned that it was now Norris chasing him.
Perez was a little too aggressive into Turn 9, running wide onto the kerbs and making it easier for Norris to squeeze past, but he used this to his advantage bu letting Norris go and maximising his exit speed onto the straight.
He was told to “use energy” on the run to the line, holding off Stroll and Ricciardo by 0.066s and 0.138s respectively having set a lap time a further four seconds slower – just over 10.5s off his fastest lap of the race thanks to a combination of the deteriorating wing and the time lost as Gasly and Norris passed him.
Perez apologised to the team over the radio, but despite saying “sorry guys” and having made the original mistake with Albon, his pace with car damage and the assistance from the pitwall ensured he still finished sixth rather than sliding down to eighth.
