Christian Horner finds Sergio Perez’s Performance “hugely frustrating” After The Mexican Suffers Yet Another Disastrous Qualifying Session

Srijon Jana | 01/07/2023
Christian Horner finds Sergio Perez's Performance "hugely frustrating" After The Mexican Suffers Yet Another Disastrous Qualifying Session

Sergio Perez had a nightmare Qualifying session in Austria after he was knocked out in Q2 once again. Team Principal Christian Horner was quite evidently frustrated after the session and claimed that he was very frustrated with the Mexican’s performance.

Red Bull had yet another mixed Qualifying session where one of their drivers claimed the pole position, and the other was able to get into Q3. The worst part is, this has happened four times in a row. Ever since the Monaco GP, Max Verstappen has claimed pole positions in all the races, with Perez failing to reach Q3 on all four occasions.

A similar thing happened at the Austrian GP, where Perez was demoted to P15 after failing to keep his car inside track limits during Q2. All of his lap times were deleted, and the Mexican was knocked out. To rub salt in his wounds, Verstappen pipped Charles Leclerc by a meager 0.048 seconds to take pole position.

Christian Horner cannot celebrate Verstappen’s pole position due to Sergio Perez

Christian Horner was extremely dejected following the Qualifying session in Austria. Even though one of his cars had claimed pole position, Horner said that the feeling of joy was incomplete for him.

Horner exclaimed that Perez had the pace today to get on the front row. Perez was closely following Verstappen’s times but he failed to do the one thing that his team asked of him – “stay in the white lines.”

“Just hugely frustrating because he could have been there, he could have done it,” said Horner. Horner also mentioned that Perez’s early exit from Quali meant that he could not even celebrate Verstappen’s pole position. “It’s fantastic that we got the pole, but it feels incomplete,” said the Red Bull team boss.

Perez’s underperformance in 2023

Sergio Perez has been putting in lackluster performances ever since he finished second in Miami. After that, he failed to finish in the top 3 in three consecutive races, all of which have been won by his teammate, Verstappen.

Four races into the 2023 season, Perez and Verstappen were tied on race wins with both of them having two to their names. However, as of now, Perez has 126 points to his name, while Verstappen is leading the pack with a whopping 195 points.

Perez has a lot of work to do if he wants to put up even a distant fight with his teammate. Recovering from P15 on Sunday would be the first priority at the moment.

Post Edited By: Samriddhi Jaiswal
Max Verstappen Red Bull Sergio Perez

About the author

Srijon Jana

Srijon Jana is a Formula 1 writer at The SportsRush. As a medical undergrad with a passion for motorsports, Srijon loves juggling between cadavers and cars with ease. He started watching F1 when he was only 11, and the beautiful cars grabbed his interest. Even now, he religiously follows all the Grands Prix, and when he is not gushing over Charles Leclerc, he likes to dabble in football as well. He is a college quizzer with several state-level and national-level accolades. He is a proud Ferrari fan, and loves to pass his free time reading, watching movies, and spending some quality time with his friends and family.

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