Penalty doesn’t overshadow ‘amazing’ Cadillac performance in Monaco - Perez

Sergio Perez says his post-race penalty that demoted him from 10th place to finish outside the points does not detract from Cadillac’s achievements at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Cadillac looked set for its first point in Formula 1 when Perez crossed the line in 10th, having overcome a mid-race penalty for starting from the wrong grid box. However, another investigation into a late race restart found that Perez had been outside his grid slot again and a 10-second time penalty was handed out, dropping him to 15th in the final classification after an extremely competitive weekend.

“An amazing thing for the team,” Perez said. “It was such a very tricky race out there with the vibrations – at some points we thought about retiring the car as it was so hard – but we didn’t give up, we kept pushing, kept our head down and the race presented us with another opportunity to go for it.

“I had a poor restart but a tremendous first lap and overtook a lot of cars and in the end we finished P10 on the road. It was a shame with the penalty as we didn’t get any benefit from the restart, but that’s how it is – it doesn’t detract from the result.”

Perez’s comments were backed up by TWG Motorsports CEO Dan Towriss, who says the Monaco weekend was a display of how far Cadillac has come.

“I couldn’t be more proud of this team,” Towriss told SiriusXM. “I think the speed that we brought to the track this week, the way Checo’s been driving, and really what we fought through as a team [on Sunday], there was a part of the race that was a war of attrition where you saw cars bowing out.

“The conditions, the heat, really tested these cars, and part of the race was looking like it was going to be a pretty tough day and he just kept fighting through that, and then an opportunity at the end.

“My first Monaco Grand Prix, this race is absolutely amazing. And so, to have the opportunity to get a point at my first Monaco Grand Prix, couldn’t be more excited about that. But the progress that the team has made, bringing upgrades to the track every single week, just continuing to mature as a team, everybody’s feeling really good right now regardless of the outcome of the investigation.”