Sergio Perez was hoping for a big result in Sunday's Emilia Romagna GP, but instead the Red Bull driver was left apologizing to his team for a day of costly errors.
Perez had pinned his hopes of at least achieving a podium finish at Imola on his position on the front row of the grid alongside poleman Lewis Hamilton.
But the Mexican was outpaced at the outset by teammate Max Verstappen who led the field into the first corner with Hamilton in tow.
Perez then lost a spot to Ferrari's Charles Leclerc before leaving the track under the Safety Car and then repassing several cars during the caution period to take up his previous position in the pecking order, an illicit move that earned him a 10-second stop/go penalty from the stewards.
However, the Mexican's error-laden afternoon wasn't over as he later spun at the Villeneuve chicane, a mistake that pushed him out of the top ten, and then indulged in another off-track excursion at Rivazza that left him a lowly P12 at the end of the day.
©RedBull
"I’m very, very sorry first of all to my team because I wasn’t there today," said an apologetic Perez.
"There were very poor conditions which meant that I struggled to put any temperature into my tyres, so therefore the car was very difficult to drive.
"Even under the Safety Car, I went off, I came back and I got the penalty for that, which meant I lost the position to Norris and that made things trickier.
"At the end, I think we should have finished on the podium, but unfortunately I did that mistake and that was very costly."
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner agreed that Perez's errors had deprived the team of a solid bag of points. But Horner refused to overwhelm his driver, insisting the Mexican is still finding his feet with his new team.
"He did a good job yesterday," said the Briton. "Today was a messier race for him.
"Obviously the mistake behind the Safety Car early on, the 10-second penalty and then unfortunately the mistake behind the Ferraris at the restart was a shame because he would have scored, he could well have been on the podium today as well.
"It’s frustrating not to have him up there, but he’s certainly finding his pace, finding his feet, and I’m sure he’s going to have much stronger weekends ahead."
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