Sergio Perez says he doesn’t understand the reasons for Racing Po♓int's costly decision to pit him under the Safety Car at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Perez was running in a net third place following Max Verstappen's retirement but stoppe꧟d for fresh softs when the Safety Car was deployed.

While Racing Point opted to pit Perez, the likes 💧of Daniel Ricciardo, Charles Leclerc and Alexander Albon stayed out on hards.

Perez lost a position to the AlphaTauri of Dan🔜iil Kvyat on the Safety Car restart and then was unable to overtake Leclerc, due to t☂he difficulties following other cars at Imola.

Reflecting on the dꦇecision to pit under the Safety Car, Perez said: "I don't know, I think, looking at it, it didn't make s🌞ense at the time, you know, the call was very late, but it's always easy to take the right decision after the race.

"Over❀taking today was extremely difficult. I haven't spoken to the team yet. They must have some reasons on it. Just a painful, painful day, because we had a podium in the pocket. It is just hard to digest. I think they are as disappointed as I am right now. We are a team and we lose and also win together. In hindsight, it was the wrong call today."

♈Despite missing out on his first podium since 2018, Perez says there were still plenty o⛄f positives to take.

"From all the negative we can take a lot of positives," Perez added. "That first stint was tremendous, great strategy, great calls from the team. We put ourselves in a position to get on that po🐠dium. But yeah, it is a painful day, you know. Also a painful day in the championship, our competition - we basically gave the podium to Ricciardo."