Perez: At one point we almost stopped

Max Verstappen won the race in Miami and Sergio Perez finished only fourth due to problems with the power plant…

Max Verstappen (1st): “Have a good flight. I had a good start when I was able to climb into second place. I couldn’t start normally all weekend, so I didn’t know what to expect from the start of the race. This time, however, I set out confidently and saw the opportunity to overtake Carlos in the outer radius. I think I made a great maneuver, but it must be said that we both left plenty of room for each other.

Then I immediately started chasing Charles, who started having problems with the right front tire. In the end I managed to overtake him, which was the key moment of the race. Then I made a gap and after I switched to Hard, Charles and I rode at the same pace and exchanged the best laps.

That’s why I wasn’t happy with the safety car, but that’s what happens in racing. In some races he plays into your hand, in others against you, so there’s no point in complaining.

After the restart we fought with Charles again. In the first laps I had trouble warming up the tires but once I did I was able to pull away straight away.”

Sergio Perez (4th): “Everything went well at the beginning, but at one point there was a problem with one of the power plant sensors and I lost about seven seconds in two laps. After that, the race was not a success.

The motor lost power, the deceleration in the straight line speed was too great, so even with the help of DRS I couldn’t get close to Carlos. I tried really hard to keep up with him in the corners, the tires were overheating, so as soon as the opportunity arose I tried to attack, but off the track the track was too muddy. After that I couldn’t get near him anymore.

We still have to work on reliability. Every weekend we have different problems. Luckily we managed to finish it this time, although we were really close to retirement at one point.