Poorly Perez relieved to finish in Malaysia

The Malaysian Grand Prix is a gruelling race for drivers and teams alike, but Sergio Perez was also grappling with illness throughout the race weekend.

The Force India came down with a virus on Thursday which had left him shivering with cold despite the heat and humidity.

Although he was on the road to recovery by Saturday, it had been a big challenge for him simply to get through qualifying, let alone today's race.

"It is obviously not the place where you want to be sick," he admitted. "I just kept going out of willingness to do it, and I have to thank the doctors for helping me out.

"[It was a struggle] just to make it to the finish line. At some points I thought like I'm going to have to give up on the weekend given my condition.

"I'm just happy that I finally made it to the end, and got some good points for the team," he said.

Perez had given few outward signs of being ill, swiftly up to sixth by the end of the first lap. He was also able to overtake Stoffel Vandoorne's McLaren for fifth on lap 7.

"Having a good start was the key to my race," he agreed. "And so was passing Vandoorne during the first few laps.

"After that, I was able to manage my race and it was all pretty uneventful.

"We were able to extend the first stint and manage our tyres well," he added. "It was good and important and crucial for our race, that we managed to go long."

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Understandably, Perez was unable to do anything about being passed by Sebastian Vettel on lap 20. The Ferrari driver had started from the back of the grid, but in the race had shown the best pace of anyone.

"I was only under pressure from Vettel, but that was not really my fight."

Perez' team mate Esteban Ocon might have been feeling fine, but he had a more torrid afternoon on track. Contact at the start with William's Felipe Massa left him with a slow puncture, and the requisite pit stop for new tyres dropped him to the back of the field.

"It was a disappointing race and I'm not feeling very happy," he said. "The contact on lap one with Massa gave me a puncture and ruined my race. I had to pit on lap two and drive almost the entire race on one set of soft tyres.

"When you consider the condition of the tyres at the end of the race, we did well to score the final point," he pointed out.

Later in the race Ocon also clashed with Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz on lap 25, which cost him several positions.

"The other bad moment of my race happened when I was overtaking Sainz and he crashed into me," Ocon complained. "I shouldn't have been fighting him, but I was out of position because of the puncture and trying to recover.

"I don't know what he did. He just locked up and went straight into me, causing me to spin.

"It's a race to forget for me, because the pace of the car was strong and we couldn't maximise it."

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