Sergio Perez has called on Cadillac to investigate his dramatic suspension failure during the Canadian Grand Prix, believing there to be a root cause.
Perez had just exited the back straight at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on lap 39, en route to entering the pit lane, when the front-right suspension collapsed, leading to him limping back to his team’s garage into retirement.
It was naturally a shock moment for the veteran Mexican driver, and now he is hoping the team can work to uncover what occurred.
“It’s something we need to investigate, understand, and hopefully get on top of, because it’s not ideal what happened,” he said, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365.
“Operationally, we are still lacking a lot, and we are not making progress in terms of performance, so we need to maximise the car performance at the moment.”
Although this is Cadillac’s first race, and the event in Montréal was its fifth grand prix, Perez has declared himself “impatient” with the operational side of the team.
“It’s something that we have to improve, and we are in a massive hurry, because we are not maximising the results,” he said.
Pointing out that was also the case in qualifying on Saturday, and not just in the race, he added: “We are making progress on performance, which is very positive.
“But on the operational side, it’s something that we are lacking tremendously, and we have to really find our way for the European season now.”
In the grand prix, Perez was one of seven drivers to start on the intermediate tyres, alongside team-mate Valtteri Bottas, McLaren duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, Audi pair Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto, as well as Williams’ Carlos Sainz.
It was a decision that backfired on all concerned. Only Sainz managed to salvage something by finishing ninth.
Explaining the call, Perez said: “The laps to the grid, it felt like it was 50-50. It was really hard to choose a tyre. And then when we went into the race with so many aborts, the rain calmed down quite a bit, and it was a lot clearer for the slick tyre.
“We took the gamble. I felt like it had stopped raining a little bit less, but it became a lot clearer that we were on the wrong tyre very early on. Within three laps, we killed the inter, and that was the biggest issue there.
“But we managed to recover. We had some good pace out there, some good fights with the Haas. We overtook the Haas, and then unfortunately, we had the suspension failure at the end.”
