Perez upbeat despite late crash in Monza second practice

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Sergio Perez felt like it had been a good day for Red Bull, despite his late crash in the final minutes of second practice for the Italian Grange Prix.

Perez was third fastest by the time he ran off into the gravel at the Parabolica, narrowly missing a high speed impact into the tyre barrier and instead only doing relatively light damage to the rear wing of the RB19.

“I understeered off on the exit and tried to keep it nailed,” Perez explained after the end of the session. “I thought I had it under control, but then I just touch a little bit the gravel, and that was game over.”

The car threw up a huge amount of dust as it spun through the gravel, sending a big cloud drifting over interested onlookers in nearby pit lane. But the damage looked relatively minor and easily dealt with overnight.

“It doesn’t look too bad to me, the damage, the hit was fairly small,” Perez agreed. “I don’t think we lost any time at the end, maybe two laps, so nothing representative in that regard.”

Read also: Birthday boy Sainz puts Ferrari on top in second practice as Perez crashes

There was only four minutes remaining by the time the session resumed, by which time the qualifying runs had already finished leaving Perez in P3 behind Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris.

"It was a shame that we ended FP2 the way that we did as I felt that it has otherwise been a positive day.

“The positive is that the car is performing well," he said. "I’m feeling comfortable with it and I think we are in a good position for the rest of the weekend. I really felt like we had a very strong Friday.”

“I think definitely this has been the best Friday in a while for us,” he reiterated. “We’ve been working really hard. I think we’ve found some positive steps in the car so hopefully we can show it all tomorrow and on Sunday.”

His team mate Max Verstappen topped first practice but ended the day only fifth fastest after getting caught up by traffic in the second sector with no time to make a second run and still complete their long distance programme.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.