Sergio Perez admitted he was delighted to end the season on a high as he secured a fifth place finish in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The Sahara Force India driver, who has been one of the stars of the latter part of the year after a number of consistent results, was unable to keep the much faster Sebastian Vettel behind him, but more than content with being able to keep the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo behind him until the chequered flag.
“It feels great to end the season with a strong performance and I’m very satisfied with how everything has gone this weekend – both in qualifying and the race,” said Perez.
“We pushed hard to try and beat Vettel today, but he had too much pace on the supersofts and it wasn’t possible to hold him back. The rest of the race was straightforward for me, with no big dramas, because I was on my own looking after the tyres.
“When I was running fourth I was pushing very hard to stay within Vettel’s pit window, which took a lot from my tyres and meant that Ricciardo was able to get close to me at the end of the race. Fortunately I had enough left to hold him off.
“I think we got the maximum that was available to us and we can be proud of our performance.”
