“I’m very, very pissed off today”– Sergio Perez on his missed front-row qualifying result, as he settles with a P7 grid start for Sunday.
Red Bull was supposed to get the first-row result from the qualifying on Saturday, but they had to settle with a p3 for Max Verstappen and P7 for Sergio Perez.
Though unlike Monaco, both drivers have the chance to climb up by overtaking, so the win is still on the cards. But Perez is devastated with his performance and expected a front-row result for himself.
“It was a big disappointment today,” Perez said when asked by Motorsport.com about his Q3 lap. “I was on a great lap, into Turn 4, I was about two-tenths up on my time, and I locked up.”
“I think I was a little bit too close to Lando, and the wind picked up. I locked up, I lost the lap. I was pretty confident of getting a good lap time out of it. We’ve been strong all weekend. In Q3, really when it mattered, it was a disaster.”
There are positives as well.
However, Perez is willing to forget the qualifying session and looking forward to getting a better result in the race, as he believes his team has a brilliant race pace.
“I’m very, very pissed off today given that we should definitely be in the top two, on the front row, at very least,” Perez said. “But there are a lot of positives. I think we should be able to have a strong race pace as well.”
Some drivers broke gentlemen’s agreement.
The Mexican race driver was disappointed with a few of his colleagues’ behaviour that caused unnecessary traffic and accused many of breaking F1’s gentlemen code.
“With the out laps, the track is so big, but because we all want to be together, it’s a disaster, starting that lap,” Perez said. “Actually, in terms of track position, Q3 was the worst that I had all weekend.
“We all went at the same time, and people created gaps, but then other people overtaking, not respecting the gentleman’s agreement. It just made things a bit harder. We didn’t put the lap when it really counted today. As simple as that.”
