Perez 'paid the price' for Red Bull struggle in Japanese GP

Sergio Perez felt he "paid the price" for suffering with balance issues during the Japanese Grand Prix. Starting second, Perez followed home team leader Max Verstappen for a third Red Bull one-two of the season, to score his first career podium at Suzuka. Verstappen largely had Perez covered in the opening laps, but a slight mistake at the second Degner corner allowed the Dutchman to break free, with Perez bemoaning the feeling of his RB20. "It was a good weekend for the team, and first of all, I think obviously with the restart and doing the start again, it is always quite hard to keep the focus for such a long period of time," Perez explained. "My second start was a little bit better, but just not enough to get Max, and I think we paid the price a little bit because we were a bit off-balance in that first stint, which meant we couldn't keep it alive.

In what was a two-stop race, Red Bull opted for a medium-medium-hard strategy, but Perez found himself undercut by Lando Norris after the first round of stops. He quickly passed the McLaren - and felt more comfortable on the hardest Pirelli tyres as the race developed. "We had to box, and were undercut by Lando [Norris] and then I had to push too much on that medium stint but then on the hard stint, I was a lot more comfortable," he said. "The pace came back, but I think I suffered a bit from that first stint because we were a bit unbalanced. "We have good momentum, and if you remember here last year, it was probably my worst weekend. "So if we are strong in places like this with a lot of high and medium-speed corners, I think we can be strong anywhere."