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Smirking, the Brit said: “I was surprised how long it took Checo to pass with the superior pace of that car. They were so fast in the high-speed corners, we saw it yesterday, probably a factor into their better tyre degradation than the rest of us.<\/p>\n
“But I was really pleased to hold him off for that long and felt good and confident under braking into turn one. There’s something satisfying about it when you do manage to hold a car off like that for so long. So I take a small positive in that there was no mistake from my side in those laps but unfortunately the pace just wasn’t there today.”<\/p>\n
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Perez has found himself in the firing line on numerous occasions this season, having ultimately failed to take the fight to Verstappen. Earlier this week, Lewis Hamilton appeared to take a pop at Perez by downplaying the standard of Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mates.<\/p>\n
“In my personal opinion, all my team-mates have been stronger than the team-mates Max has had,” the seven-time world champion told Sky Sports. “Jenson [Button], Fernando [Alonso], George [Russell], Valtteri [Bottas], Nico [Rosberg].<\/p>\n
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“I’ve had so many. These guys have all been very, very strong, very consistent \u2013 and Max has not raced against anyone like that.”<\/p>\n
Although Russell may have enjoyed keeping Perez in his rear-view mirrors for as long as he did, Mercedes were ultimately left to settle for P5 and P6 at Monza, as Red Bull crowned Verstappen’s 10th consecutive race win with a resounding one-two.<\/p>\n