In a devastating blow to local fans, Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez was eliminated in Q1 at his home Grand Prix, qualifying P18. The Mexican driver’s struggles were evident throughout the session, 1.532 seconds slower than his teammate Max Verstappen on run one. The gap was 0.808s in the end.
Pérez’s qualifying unravelled during the final few minutes of Q1, where late improvements from Valtteri Bottas, Nico Hülkenberg, and Lance Stroll pushed him further down the order. His final time left him 0.808 seconds adrift of Verstappen’s Q1 pace, and crucially 1.092 seconds behind session leader Lando Norris.
The disappointing result comes amid ongoing technical challenges that Pérez has been battling with the RB20.
“I just put too much energy into the tyres and that makes it very tricky for me to stop the car,” explained Pérez.
“It’s been there for the last three races where I cannot stop the car. I’m having to modulate quite a lot my braking and that’s something we can see in the data, but we are not able to fix it at the moment.”
The issues appear to be particularly apparent at the Mexico City circuit as grip is at a premium.
“It’s mainly on the straight line, the issue that we are facing, I just slide too much and given that it’s all surface sensitivity here, it makes it a lot harder.”
Looking ahead to Sunday’s race, Pérez faces an uphill battle from his back-row starting position. While determined to fight back, he remains realistic about the challenges ahead.
“It’s going to be hard because it’s also present there in the long run, so I will try everything. I will try and see what we are able to do with the team and see what solutions we are able to find.”
The situation is further complicated by parts availability within the team.
“The problem is that we are also very tight on parts that we have available. We don’t have the spec of floor that we would like to go onto,” Pérez revealed, highlighting the technical limitations facing his side of the garage.
A pit lane start was not completely ruled out by the 34-year-old as it means set-up changes can be made.
“We will discuss all the options. I don’t know, we will discuss it for sure with the team.”
For Pérez, the timing of these struggles couldn’t be more disappointing.
“Obviously it’s very disappointing. If there’s a Grand Prix that I want to do really well, it’s this one,” he admitted.
“Unfortunately, it’s been really difficult and tricky this event. We will discuss all the options.”
