Sergio Perez explains costly mistake after Cadillac heartbreak

Sergio Perez has reflected on the penalty that snatched away the point he scored at the Monaco Grand Prix, which would have been Cadillac's first in F1.

The six-time grand prix winner finished tenth on the road in Monte Carlo, but his second punishment of the afternoon — a 10-second time penalty — saw him drop to P15 at the chequered flag, with Fernando Alonso inheriting Aston Martin's first point of the campaign.

It switched the fortunes of F1's two back-marking teams, making it an even more bitter pill for Perez and the fledgling American squad to swallow.

"I had a bit of mixed emotions," the 36-year-old told media, including RacingNews365, ahead of the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.

"Obviously, it was a really fantastic race with everything that happened, everything that came to us during that race, we had every single issue that you could imagine.

"And then the race gave us an opportunity, which we grabbed with both hands, and unfortunately, I got the penalty at the end, which made it a little bit unsweeter."

Taking responsibility

The Mexican driver was twice sanctioned for being out of position at the start, for both the initial launch and the post-red flag restart.

The first error was the most egregious and warranted a drive-through penalty after he lined in Gabriel Bortoleto's vacant P16 grid slot, not in his earned P18 position, something that explained his excellent start in the Principality.

However, the second, whilst less serious, ended up being a far more costly mistake.

"I think the first one is something we can clean up with the communication as well," Perez added, before detailing how the second punishment, for his right front tyre being outside his grid box, was secured.

"But obviously I take the responsibility, and at the same time, when you operate so much on the limit as a driver, I've had good starts because I maximise every single centimetre, I try to keep my tyres as warm as possible, that means that I do my burnouts as close as possible to the [grid] box, so I put everything down to every centimetre and to the limit, and I went over it a bit.

"But, at the end of the day, where I put the car, we didn't have the pace to do it, so there's still a lot of positives to take."

Perez's MAC-26 was starting on a shaded part of the pit straight, where tree coverage makes it difficult for drivers to see their grid boxes.

"I think it was a bit of everything, because I was down in the shadows," he explained. "Even when they tried to see on the CCTV camera, they couldn't, because there is a shadow; there's a tree on top of it, so there was a bit of a shadow.

"So I put it down to just being too much on the limit, trying to get there with the tyres as hot as possible, and so making my burnouts as late as possible, and it wasn't as clear to me."