Sergio Perez doesn’t lack humor
Sergio Pérez revealed today that he played a trick on the Sauber team on Sunday during the Japanese Grand Prix. The Mexican driver, who had started 17th, finally finished 8th in the race, allowing the Swiss team to score significant points in its battle with Force India. But as the checkered flag approached, Pérez announced over the radio that the problem he had been suffering from for several laps was worsening, and as a result, he was forced to slow down.
Sergio Pérez is a driver with a sense of humor because he made his engineers believe that the problem he was experiencing during the Japanese Grand Prix would not allow him to finish the race. He announced to his engineers that he was losing power at the entrance of the last corner when it wasn’t true.
They were so excited about the idea that we could score new points. We had a problem, we had some vibrations, and in the last part of the track, the last corner, I told them I had lost power and they were very worried. But when I crossed the line, a few seconds later they realized it was just a joke, Sergio Pérez shared during the press conference in South Korea.
The Sauber team is in a battle with Force India for sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship, and the four points scored by Pérez allowed the team to close the gap to just 8 points behind Force India with four races remaining in the season, creating some tension among the engineers ahead of the Mexican’s arrival at Suzuka.
But according to Swiss media, Pérez is not new to such pranks; he allegedly pulled the same kind of joke on his engineers when he was racing in the GP2 Series championship in 2009 and 2010.
