Perez: Good to be on the podium, but I wanted more

The Red Bull Formula 1 driver was targeting becoming the first Mexican to win his home grand prix this weekend, but a troubled qualifying where he finished fourth put him on the back foot, not to mention his dominant teammate on pole position, Max Verstappen.

However a decent start meant he overtook George Russell and set on chasing Lewis Hamilton in the other Mercedes, but finally had to settle for third especially with his tardy pitstop in mind.

Perez said after the race: "It feels good to be on the podium but I wanted more today, I am a little bit disappointed.

"We could have finished second definitely but we had a poor pitstop, which really prevented us doing the undercut and being closer to Lewis," he added.

"The hard tyre didn't work for him initially but once he got them going it just didn't work for me, then I was looking after my tyres and there was no more in them. We were planning to do a two-stop race but degradation was better than expected," the Mexican explained.

"This place in unbelievable, it is an amazing crowd here and I will never forget these moments because of the people," Perez gave tribute to his home crowd and race venue.

"It is certainly, if not the best, one of the best crowds in Formula One - I am very privileged to have this support. I just want to go and win the next two races now, we have had the pace in the last few races, so now I just want to put it all together, cut out the small problems and then I believe we can do that," he concluded.

Christian Horner commented on the race; he said: "Both drivers were impeccable today and we got our strategy absolutely right.

"The soft and medium tyres were definitely the quickest. After both drivers' first pitstop, we saw that the tyres were in really good shape so it was a no brainer to put on the mediums.

"Checo had a little bit of trouble with his pitstop, but his recovery was phenomenal and to see both drivers on the podium is incredible," he maintained of Perez's race.

With Charles Leclerc finishing the race down in sixth on an underwhelming day for Ferrari, Perez now sits second in the Drivers' Championship, five points ahead of the Ferrari driver who's third.