Only a late spin could stop Sergio Perez today. The Red Bull driver, after his great P2 in Spain, led the third practice session and will start the Monaco GP from P3. With only thirty seconds left in the session, Perez spun into the wall just before the beginning of the tunnel section, and was also hit afterwards by Carlos Sainz.

I’m very sorry it ended up this way, my boys will have a long night. But I hope to pay them back tomorrow with a great race #nevergiveup #MonacoGP pic.twitter.com/Dw1a9RqHtw

— Sergio Pérez (@SChecoPerez) May 28, 2022

Since he had been so fast throughout all the weekend and in Spain as well, the Mexican river wasn't completely satisfied with his performance, as he said:

"Yeah, it's a bit of a shame because I knew that that lap was really really important, but that outlap was a disaster, with people not respecting the delta. I ended up in the final sector with a time that was well above it, but the tyres were too cold."

"I nearly lost it in Turn 1 and I was thinking that probably the tyres would pick up grip at some point, get better, but no, it's a shame."

He was extremely disappointed: "It's a shame that it ended up that way because I felt like probably not pole but we should be in second position."

Asked if he could have matched once again Charles Leclerc had he completed his lap, he wasn't sure, adding that his objective would have been starting from the front row:

"My lap was quite close to the one before, but I needed to find three tenths, maybe in the second or third sector we would have been in a better shape, but sector 1 was just quite a difficult one. Difficult to know but I think P2 was possible."

However, the Mexican driver confirmed that he was physically fine, after doing a precautionary medical check:

"All okay, it was just a precautionary check from the medical center, I think there was a technical issue that measured a high energy."

Perez went more into detail in explaining what went wrong in his second pole attempt, highlighting the tyre heating issue behind his spin caused by drivers not respecting the outlap procedure correctly, and the way he felt "like a passenger" while hitting the wall:

"Yeah, it's frustrating to end up in that disaster. It was just a mess after two, three laps, I just ended up too cold, everyone was backing out in the final sector, so...

"Tyres were too cold, I had already lost feeling in Turn 1, I felt like the tyre was going to pick up some temperature throughout the lap, but it was just not there, you know? I tried too much on that lap."

"I think we had a solid base, FP3 we were there. Q3 went even better, but during my final stint my final lap was very poor," he summed up in the end.

The Red Bull driver is hopeful for tomorrow's race, in spite of the heavy damage suffered in Q3:

"We are very confident, the boys are... I mean, I'm sorry that it's going to be a long night for them, but hopefully we can recover a bit back tomorrow. We're still in a good position, so hopefully we can score a good amount of points."

"A long race ahead, so everything could really happen."

Perez still doesn't know the full extent of the damage his car suffered from, and described the situation of having to put it back together "tricky": "Once we get the car back we will really know how bad the damage is."