Ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Max Verstappen controlled the qualifying session for the second year in a row. Behind him came the Ferraris and George Russell who sandwiched them, but it was not until fifth place that the Dutchman’s teammate emerged.
Sergio Pérez, whose best lap was almost half a second slower than the two-time champion’s, talked about his experience on track and how running two new sets in Q1 hampered him.
“Unfortunately we lost a set [of tyres] going into Q2, we thought we were not safe and then we were. We ended up aborting but it was a scrubbed tyre anyway, so we only had one shot.”
One of the Mexican driver’s strengths has always been taking care of his tyres, and today he had to do so in a different way, which, he says, left him far behind his teammate: “Yeah, I did a scrappy run and unfortunately I did not have two new sets for Q3. So I decided to save it for tomorrow, which will hopefully pay out.”
When questioned about the importance of closing the gap to his teammate in points, Pérez said that in order to do so, he must have a good start, but first he has to wait and see how things go tomorrow in the race: “It will be important to get a good start, I think if we get a good start we will go from there, should be a good day for the team, you know? We are in a good position we managed to save our soft tyre in qualifying. So yeah, let’s wait and see where we are tomorrow.”
The Guadalajara native was fully aware after testing of how close all the teams are, and he assures that a great battle awaits everyone on the grid tomorrow: “But things are really close and I think tomorrow is a nice battle, it’s going to be a nice battle ahead.
“Everything’s so tight out there. I didn’t have a great Turn 1 and that means two or three places, you know, given how tight everything is.”
The Mexican driver confessed not to be surprised by the results of the qualifying session today and the compact nature of the field: “Not really. It was already in testing, so I’m not surprised. I think things are super, super close out there so it’s going to be an interesting battle tomorrow.”
