For the second race in succession Sergio Pérez failed to escape Q1, while in both cases teammate and championship leader Max Verstappen reached Q3. In short, yet another frustrating day in the office for the Mexican, who just extended his contract with Red Bull Racing.
Pérez had looked close to teammate Verstappen in FP3 but ended up almost a second off in Q1 as he was eliminated by less than half a tenth.
“Yeah, it’s a massive frustration.
“I think it was a session where everything resetted with the weather and we just couldn’t get everything to work, especially the rear axle.
“I think it was a very strange session for a lot of cars out there and we did struggle quite a lot with the rear end. So I think we got to understand what’s the reason behind it.”
And although Checo feels the run plan could have been better in hindsight, his RB20 just “fundamentally [was] lacking some pace today”.
Last year’s runner-up in the championship felt the track being so ‘green’ after all the rain didn’t help him, especially with getting the tyres in the correct operating window, but with the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve being a better track to race on than Monaco, he was optimistic for some points in the race.
“I think the track being so green it really reset things up but I was struggling to put the temperature into the tyre and I think that was the main struggle.
“I think we got some bits to understand and hopefully we get through tomorrow and we are able to secure a couple of points. That will be a good result and then really just go from there.
“I believe that we are able to come through it, we just have to understand the issue and really go from there.”
After Verstappen voiced his concerns prior to the weekend, Pérez adds his two cents on Red Bull’s position in the pecking order, which is far from the dominance seen in 2023.
“I think when you look at the Ferrari’s, they were on pole in Monaco and I think this track is not very different to that. I think it’s a long season, it will only matter where we finish in Abu Dhabi, there will be very different tracks coming up.
“But like I said, I think we got some fundamental issues today that we have to understand and come back at it.“
