"Overtaking is so difficult"- Sergio Perez claims he had to 'stay in third' at 2022 F1 Mexican GP

For the second year in a row, Sergio Perez secured a P3 finish at his home Grand Prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit this weekend. With this result, he has lifted himself back into second in the drivers' standings ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

In a post-race media interaction, the Red Bull driver admitted that while he would have liked to win, third place was the best he could have achieved given the difficulty in overtaking on this track. He said:

"I gave my best today, you know at the start. I really pushed hard. Unfortunately we had a little bit of a bad stop which prevented the undercut on Lewis. Overtaking is so difficult and as soon as I got behind him it was really difficult. I had to stay in third. It's a good podium, I really wanted more in front of these fans today but third place is still a good place."

Sergio Perez's teammate Max Verstappen went on to win the race and become the first driver in F1 history to win a whopping 14 races in a season.

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Sergio Perez describes 2022 F1 Mexican GP qualifying as a "total mess"

Sergio Perez was hoping to put on a show in front of his home crowd at the 2022 F1 Mexican GP. He, however, missed out on the possibility of pole position and a potential win after suffering an electric issue that created absolute chaos for the Mexican driver. He eventually had to settle for fourth on the starting grid and only managed to convert it into a P3 finish in the main race.

In a post-qualifying media interaction, Sergio Perez explained how he essentially completed qualifying without any references of lap times. He said:

"It was a mess, a total mess. We had an electrical issue from the beginning but, if I look back at my quali, I was nearly knocked out in Q1, nearly in Q2, I had no reference to progress, I had no lap times. Sometimes I could not figure out where I was with my brake balance either. So it was a total mess, but in the end I think P4 is not the worst bit, but I think certainly we could have been quite a lot higher than we are."

He continued:

"It was all to do with the electrical issue that we had throughout the quali. Basically I had no reference with lap times and so on. [DRS] came back, the only thing that didn't come back was my electrical. They [Red Bull] are confident that they can sort that out [for the race]."

While Perez was unable to convert his drive into a victory, Red Bull have both drivers in the top two of the drivers' standings with two races to go.