Twelve months after standing atop the Monaco podium, Sergio Perez endured the worst weekend of his career.

With the Mexican having crashed out in Q1, and starting the race from the back of the grid, it was always likely that Sunday would be a difficult afternoon for the Mexican.

However, his team opted to pit him after just one lap, switching from mediums to hards in a bid to make the most of his proven tyre management.

Unfortunately, he soon found himself at the end of a typical Monaco traffic train and what with the subsequent rain, not forgetting encounters with Lance Stroll and Kevin Magnussen and finally a tangle with George Perez there were four further pit stops over the course of the afternoon.

"It was going really well," he said at race end. "The conditions were tricky out there and there was some hope that when it started raining we could get things right. But we didn't, it was a shame.

"Unfortunately I hit the traffic really early and that put us back in our original position," he said of his first stop.

"I then broke my front wing with Magnussen who just braked out of the chicane, and it went bad. I had no idea what was going on, but unfortunately I had quite some damage.

"When you are in those positions, you always have to risk a lot," he admitted. "Then the rain came and I was one of the last to pit. Then I clipped the wall and it was all a mess.

"We paid the price for my mistake (in qualifying)," he sighed, "and that's been very costly. It's really, really sad with the performance, but not today, basically from yesterday. We knew that this was the price that we were going to pay.

"I knew that my mistake yesterday was extremely costly, and then that was 25 points," he added. "It is very frustrating.

"I don't think there was much we could have done differently," he insisted, "all the damage was done yesterday. I only want to move on from this race because it was a terrible weekend.

"I have to apologise to my whole team because it is unacceptable to have this kind of mistake. I have to move on and learn from it. I cannot afford another zero in the championship.

"But still I have some hope," he said. "I really hope I can be back to my normal level in Barcelona. I need to be perfect in the next few races, I need to get victories... and get them soon."

"Unfortunately it was a difficult weekend for Checo," said Christian Horner. "Despite his best efforts, there was very little he could do after yesterday's qualifying.

"Knowing Checo though, he will learn from his mistakes and respond quickly in Spain."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Monaco here.