Sergio Perez is glad that his incident with the barrier at the Baku Street Circuit happened on Friday rather than Saturday, leading to a messy opening day of practice.
The Sahara Force India F1 Team driver found himself in the barriers following a heavy shunt, with twenty minutes remaining of Free Practice 1, which meant the session was delayed, while the marshals recovered the VJM10 from the circuit. There was only five minutes remaining, leaving little chance for any driver to improve their times. With his strong performance before the incident, Perez finished the session in fourth, with a time of 1:45.398s, just behind Sebastian Vettel.
For the second session, the Silverstone-based outfit were able to get Perez back out on track, thanks to some quick work during the break. The Mexican finished the session with a time of 1:44.306s to finish seventh ahead of the Scuderia Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat, who managed to split the two Force India drivers.
There were a lot of yellow and red flags during both sessions, with drivers struggling in the low grip conditions, for Perez these made for a messy day as they kept breaking the flow of the sessions.
“First and foremost, I want to thank my mechanics and the whole team for fixing the car so quickly,” said Perez. “They are some of the best guys in the pit lane and they showed exactly why.
“This morning was all about trying to find the limits, and I think we did – it was good it happened today rather than tomorrow. It was a bit of a messy day, not just with what happened in FP1 but also because of all the yellow and red flags breaking the flow of the sessions.
“I still think we are in a good position. Tonight we will need to work out the best set-up: I feel we have a good potential for the weekend, we just have to put it all together when it matters.”
