Red Bull chief Helmut Marko has joked that Sergio Perez was drunk on tequila as he missed out on a podium spot at the French Grand Prix.
Perez looked set to secure a third place finish in Le Castellet, but was overtaken by Mercedes driver George Russell after a virtual safety car was deployed. As the safety car period ended, Russell quickly attacked and overtook Perez, who was slow to respond to the Brit's move.
Speaking after the race, Red Bull senior adviser Marko was quoted by Sueddeutsche as saying of Perez: "Maybe he had tequila yesterday". Marko continued: "It is very unfortunate that Checo was asleep at the restart. A certain third place was lost there."
And Perez later explained that he got caught out by Russell due to some confusion over when the Virtual Safety Car was due to end. Speaking to Sky Sports, he said: "First of all, we should have another podium.
"I don't know what was going on with the Virtual Safety Car. I just got caught out with it, because it was telling me it was ending already from the exit of [Turn] 8.
"It ended up at the end of [Turn] 15. So there was something going on there and I got caught out with it."
Russell, meanwhile, told Sky Sports: "I had to sort of pre-empt it [slowing before accelerating quickly] and it can go both ways. I knew I had one opportunity when the VSC was ending and if you can time it right and you carry the momentum, you can just carry that through after the VSC.
"I think he may have been a little bit too quick and had to brake. So he’s braking, I’m accelerating and that gave me an opportunity."
Perez's teammate Max Verstappen ultimately won the race to extend his lead in F1 driver's standings, while Russell's teammate Lewis Hamilton finished second in what his best performance of the season.
