Sergio Perez finished fifth in the Belgian Grand Prix but found his race compromised early when he was forced to run wide at turn one to avoid the incident ahead of him that saw him lose a lot of ground.
The Sahara Force India driver dropped to ninth after going around the spun Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel but was able to make good gains during the race at Spa-Francorchamps despite being forced to push his tyres more than he wanted to in order to make up the lost ground, and pulled off a handful of good passes, most notably on Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso.
“It’s been a great day for the team and I am very pleased to finish fifth, but it was quite a tough race from the start,” said Perez. “I chose a wide line going into turn one, but had to go far on the outside to avoid the first corner accident and that cost me a few positions.
“I dropped down to ninth and that compromised my race. I managed to make some good progress early on, but every time I switched to new tyres I found myself having to put a lot of stress on them as I needed to attack Felipe [Massa] then Fernando [Alonso]. I still managed to make my way through and bring home a good result for the team.”
Perez’s result, coupled with Nico Hülkenberg’s fourth place meant Force India jumped ahead of Williams Martini Racing into fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship, but the Mexican knows there is still a long way to go this season before they can celebrate.
“Moving to fourth in the constructors” championship is a fantastic achievement for us, but we can’t get carried away because there’s still a very long way to go in the season,” said Perez. “Hopefully we can keep our momentum going and keep scoring strongly.”
