Sergio Perez says fifth was the maximum at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after rounding off his best season in Formula One with another solid drive.
Perez secured a career-best ninth position in the drivers' championship at Yas Marina, finishing as the best of the rest behind Mercedes and Ferrari. The Mexican driver returned his team to the podium in Russia earlier this year and is happy to end the campaign on another high.
"Yes, I'm happy with it," Perez said. "When you feel like you maximised everything you had from the car then you can be happy with it and today I feel I did that, yesterday I felt that I did it, so happy with the weekend but also very happy with the season I've had."
Perez started fourth but ended up losing a place over the course of the race to Sebastian Vettel, who charged through the field on an alternative strategy. Though he briefly held fourth in the closing stages Perez was never likely to beat the Ferrari once he took on the faster super-soft tyre for his final stint.
"We pushed hard to try and beat Vettel today, but he had too much pace on the super-softs and it wasn't possible to hold him back. The rest of the race was straightforward for me, with no big dramas, because I was on my own looking after the tyres. When I was running fourth I was pushing very hard to stay within Vettel's pit window, which took a lot from my tyres and meant that [Daniel] Ricciardo was able to get close to me at the end of the race. Fortunately I had enough left to hold him off."