Sergio Perez says that he knew that pressuring Charles Leclerc into a mistake in the closing stages of the Japanese Grand Prix was his only chance of seizing second from the Ferrari driver.
Perez was racing on his own in third place during his opening stint in the wet at Suzuka, with teammate Max Verstappen and Leclerc running up ahead.
The pecking order among the front-runners remained unchanged after the field switched to inters. But front tyre degradation eventually began to weigh on Leclerc's pace, with the Monegasque progressively falling into Perez's clutches.
The Red Bull driver bridged the gap and on the final lap, as the pair entered the chicane, Leclerc cut across the latter and while he managed to remain in front of Perez at the checkered flag, a post-race five-second penalty dropped the Ferrari charger to third, which ensured not only a Red Bull 1-2 but also Verstappen's 2022 word title.
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"It was a nice battle," said Perez after the race, drenched in his teammate's coronation champagne.
"I think it was really tricky to overtake without DRS. I had to place [the car] into [Turn] 11 and out of 14 on the way to 17 on the back straight, but those places were where Charles was actually strong.
"I could see that he was managing well his race. His tyres, once he ran out of them, he was making it really hard, you know. So I knew that the only way I could get him was if I pushed him into a mistake.
"Towards the end, I thought there was one more lap left, so when he went off, I thought that was going to be the opportunity, but it didn't happen. [In the end] we managed to get a good result for the team and a great one-two."
Leclerc admitted that once degradation had set in, he was inevitably in survival mode as he defended his runner-up spot.
"We were very fast for four or five laps, but unfortunately the race was a bit longer than that. It was all about trying to survive until the end of the race," he explained.
"The end of the race was extremely difficult. Obviously Checo was putting quite a bit of pressure behind; I was really, really struggling with both of my front tyres and I ended up making a mistake."
Despite his mistake, Leclerc had exited the chicane complex without gaining an advantage over his pursuer. But the Scuderia driver nevertheless considered that his penalty was justified.
"I did a mistake, tried to minimise it obviously by trying to go straight," Leclerc said.
"I was not aware this was the last lap. But five seconds penalty was the right thing to do, to be honest."
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