Marko defends Perez: 'Not just his mistake, Red Bull's too'

Sergio Perez was, to put it mildly, not having his weekend in Monaco. After his crash in qualifying, the Red Bull Racing driver had to come a long way, but the race ended up being what he himself predicted: an outright nightmare. Helmut Marko, who normally doesn't mince his words in his criticism, stands up for the Mexican this time.

Red Bull brought Perez in early to let him drive in free air, but once connected behind Lance Stroll, he made little progress. He gained a few places, but incidents later in the race and the extra pit stop that came with it prevented him from progressing beyond 16th place.

Perez was also unable to take advantage of the rain in the final stages of the race. The timing of his pit stop was unfortunate, Marko admitted earlier. As the Mexican had nothing left to lose after this, the team decided to call him in again later in the race for a change to rain tyres.

Marko defends Perez

"In that situation, it didn't matter, so we decided to take a risk," Marko explained to ServusTV. The gamble did not work out too well for Perez, who finished the race two laps behind winner Max Verstappen.

"It was clear that we would have to go for a different strategy: the soft tyre and after one lap on hard. Unfortunately, that went wrong because of the collision," Marko continued. "I hope today's mistakes were enough for the rest of the season. It was not only his fault but also the team's. Generally, his speed was good when driving in free air, but his crash in qualifying ruined the weekend."