After the glorious race win over his teammate Max Verstappen in Jeddah, Sergio Perez made a royal mess in Australia. During the FP3, he complained about facing some issues with the brakes. During the first session of qualifying, he beached his car on the gravel and lashed out at his team for failing to fix the braking issue. While he resultantly started the race in P15, the chatter from the Red Bull garage suggested there was nothing wrong with the car. However, a multiple IndyCar race winner feels the result he delivered despite the difficulty was a commendable feat.

Soon after his qualifying was over without setting a lap time, Perez once again publically spoke against his team in an interview. The team, in a press release later, said they will check if there was something wrong with the car. However, some engineers later told veteran F1 journalist Peter Windsor that they found nothing wrong with Checo’s car. As the Mexican driver now faces accusations of lying, James Hinchcliffe has come to his rescue.

F1 Maximaal recently quoted Hinchcliffe as saying, “His rise to fifth place was just as impressive as Verstappen’s from fifteen to second in the previous race, if you consider the characteristics of observes the circuit. Yes, the red flags and subsequent restarts brought the field closer together again, but also gave more opportunities to throw away a result. Decisive overtakes and staying calm under the pressure of three standing starts are the reasons why Pérez appears on the list this week.” [Translated using Google]

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Checo finished P5 in a chaotic race that saw 3 red-flag incidents, despite starting from the pit lane. Speaking post-race, he found the result to be a positive one.

Sergio Perez was happy with the result despite losing confidence in the car

Not only did Perez finish P5 after some glorious overtakes throughout the race, but he also took home the extra point for the fastest lap. Overall, the outing was a pleasing one after a poor couple of days, helping him regain confidence in the car ahead of the next race in Baku.

Si.com quoted him as saying post-race, “Generally, it was a good result today. Yesterday, I obviously lost a bit of confidence with the car, but we made a lot of changes overnight so that helped heading into the race.”

“Overall, this race gives us confidence heading to Baku in a few weeks and we look forward to the challenge that it brings,” he added.

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Checo and Max headed into the Australian GP with just a point separating them. Coming out, Verstappen has taken a 15-point lead over his partner. Do you think the Mexican can once again challenge for the top spot when the action restarts in Azerbaijan?