Sergio Perez went into the Mexican Grand Prix weekend dreaming of a potential win in front of his home fans, with the Mexican crowd wanting nothing more than to see their home hero on the top step of the podium.
It was not to be however, with a slow pit stop costing the Mexican time in the race to catch up to Lewis Hamilton, who was struggling to get in groove with the hard compound tyres.
Red Bull are usually the pit stop kings, with the team regularly completing sub two second stops prior to the regulation changes, so this was out of character for the team.
Perez was frustrated by the result, not happy with his P3 finish with an overtake on the Mercedes seeming a realistic target before the stop.
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“It’s always nice to be standing on that, such a special podium, but I wanted more,” he said.
“I was disappointed with the result to be honest, because I felt that we could have finished second.
“There was a very big opportunity because the Mercedes were struggling a lot with the hard tyres, especially at the beginning they had very poor warm up.
“But unfortunately we had a very bad stop, which put us quite far behind.”
The Mexican will be wondering what he did to deserve such bad luck at his home race, with electrical issues costing him dearly in qualifying and then a slow pit stop slowing down his race.
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The stop meant that Perez had to battle with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz before setting after Hamilton, and this is what the Mexican cites as the main reason for his failure to catch the Mercedes.
“Yeah definitely [we could have got P2], without that I wouldn’t be that far from the Ferraris and I ended up losing time with the Ferraris as well, so all in all it wasn’t a great day for us,” said Perez.
After watching his teammate win back to back races in Vandvoort, and the spectacle that the home fans produce when Max Verstappen does win at home, Perez will have to continue to dream of what it would be like to win in Mexico City until next year.