Sergio Perez felt he had Lewis Hamilton "under control" during the Mercedes driver's late surge for a Formula 1 podium in the Hungarian Grand Prix. In the closing stages at the Hungaroring, Perez had called off his pursuit of Lando Norris in second as fourth-placed Hamilton began to rapidly close in on the Red Bull driver. The seven-time champion whittled the gap to Perez down to just over one second, but was never in a position to attempt an overtake, with Perez claiming just his second podium visit since the Miami Grand Prix as teammate Max Verstappen won his seventh straight race. And Perez was confident that Hamilton did not pose a serious threat.
Perez dismisses Hamilton threat
"It was quite difficult because we were going through the backmarkers, Lando and myself," Perez told media including RacingNews365. "I was chasing Lando, but, going offline, I had two very bad laps just cleaning up my tyres, it was when Lewis was coming up [behind me]. "But luckily, they cleaned up and I think towards the end I had him under control. "We were doing sort of similar [times] or a few tenths off, but not enough to be overtaken, so it was good." Perez was forced into a race of aggression by virtue of his ninth place in qualifying, passing the likes of both Hamilton and Oscar Piastri for position on-track during his recovery drive, with his mindset heading into the 70-lap affair being aggressive. "I just tried to maximise it, try to try to get the biggest amount of points possible," he said. "I was looking forward to getting onto the podium. So I knew that I had to do some overtaking there."
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