Sergio Perez has declared he is “back” after racing from 15th on the grid to the podium during the Austrian Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver has endured a nightmare since crashing out of Qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.
He then made a mistake in Qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix which left him down the order for the race before being caught by changeable weather on Saturday in Canada.
It looked to be more of the same on Friday when Perez had three lap times deleted for track limits violations in Qualifying 2, bundling him out of the session early.
That performance frustrated and annoyed team boss Christian Horner, who felt a Red Bull front-row lockout was possible.
“Without the issues we had on Fridays, we’ve had good pace since Lap 1,” Perez said.
“We managed to understand our issues we had in the previous races, so yeah, I believe that we are back.”
Perez’s rise through the field was steady, gaining a spot on each of the opening two laps before becoming trapped behind George Russell.
He finally passed the Mercedes driver on Lap 10, putting manners on Alex Albon a lap later.
By not stopping under the Virtual Safety Car for Nico Hulkenberg on Lap 14 he gained further track position, which left him ninth once he’d served his first stop.
On Lap 50, when he was called back into the lane, he’d risen to second, emerging from the lane close behind Lando Norris’ McLaren in fourth.
Having cleared Norris, Perez found Carlos Sainz more challenging to get by.
For three laps the duo squabbled, the Red Bull driver eventually getting the better of his rival but the delay meant Charles Leclerc in second was out of reach in the closing laps.
Though he missed out on delivering a one-two for the team, Perez was pleased with his performance – especially given he’d been unwell across the weekend.
“It’s really nice to get back to the podium,” he said.
“And on the weekend that started all really bad, you know, with – I don’t know how to say it, I want to use a bad that word, but for the track limits.
“That meant that we started P15 for the race today, and we just had to fight our way through it.
“We had some great pace, some great battles out there, but in the end it’s a good one, especially not being close to 100 percent physically, but with the adrenaline going on, you forget about everything.”
He revealed that he struggled to sleep throughout the event and has been taking medication to control a fever.
“Definitely not great,” he said when asked how he felt.
“I haven’t had a good rest; every night I’ve had a fever.
“And I think when that happens, and then you are on medications, automatically you are not 100 percent at all.
“It’s a very demanding sport, in the car, out of the car, and yeah, I’ve just been really, really weak.
” I really hope that I can recover in a few days because Silverstone, it’s another very hard race, very demanding, so I really need time.
“I’m really far from 100 percent at the moment.”
