Sergio Perez admitted that there was nothing more he could have done as the Mexican driver clinched seventh place in the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Sahara Force India driver made a good getaway to run as high as third, but found himself unable to defend from either Sebastian Vettel or Kimi Raikkonen, while he also ended the race behind Daniel Ricciardo.
But despite this, Perez believes the team made all the right decisions during the race, and with both himself and team-mate Nico Hülkenberg finishing ahead of both Williams drivers, it gave them a ten-point advantage over their rivals.
“I enjoyed myself today and I feel we made all the right decisions during the race,” said Perez. “The start was good fun – I had a clean run going into turn one and ended up in third place.
“I tried my best to hold on to the position, but I knew it would be difficult to keep some very quick cars behind me so I needed to be sensible and choose my battles. Our car was very quick today and the two-stop strategy was definitely the correct one for us.
“It meant we needed to overtake the Williams cars on the track because they were on a different strategy, but fortunately I could make the moves on them very quickly.
“The end of the race, after all the pit stops, was just a case of looking after the tyres and keeping out of trouble. We scored some very useful points today – we need to keep doing the same in the final four races.”
