Sergio Perez will start 11th in tomorrow’s Spanish Grand Prix following his 3-place grid drop carried over from Canada.
He was 8th fastest on Saturday with a 1:12.061, 0.678s behind polesitter Lando Norris, and 0.658s slower than teammate Max Verstappen.
The Mexican driver says that he mainly lost crucial time in the final sector in Q3.
Perez says having only 1 new set of soft compound tyres and a change of wind direction hurt his chances on the final segment.
“Yeah, I think we were finding the light out of the tunnel. Unfortunately, my final sector was in Q3 a little bit too poor. I lost a bit too much compared to myself. I think we could have been a lot closer.
“We only had one single set, so that made things a little bit tricky. The wind changed a bit. We only had one single set, so that made things a little bit tricky. The wind changed a bit.”
Red Bull had been on the back foot throughout practice and the 34-year-old says they have been chasing things throughout the event so far.
“But overall, I think, yeah, we’ve been a little bit too far [away] this weekend. We’ve been chasing the balance every now and then. But I feel like we’ve done some good steps, which made me feel a little bit more comfortable.
“Margins are so small, you know. I think to really find those tenths, I needed the progression, and I didn’t have that progression through the weekend. So we’ll work on that and hopefully tomorrow we’ll have a good race car.”
The Milton Keynes-based team compromised qualifying pace for better tyre degredation. Perez will try to take advantage of that tomorrow afternoon.
“We have to work a lot on that as well. So we’ve compromised a little bit qualifying for hopefully a good tyre degradation.
“I think we needed to be really good and strong on that regard. So tomorrow is going to be a long afternoon. So hopefully we are able to clear the people ahead quickly and make progress early on in the race.”
Perez spent quite a bit of time on the simulator earlier this week to try and find gains after nightmare weekends in Imola, Monaco and Canada. But the correlation did not work as expected, with the tyres giving them headaches as well.
However, Perez reassured that they should be more competitive come race day with their set-up choices.
“I think we explore the car a lot. I think we struggled a lot more than we anticipated in Barcelona. Obviously the correlation sometimes can be good, sometimes not.
“I think tyre issues have been also a bit of a standout. So it’s been quite hard to pick up a direction over the weekend. But I think we’re just getting there, and hopefully tomorrow we are able to show some good race pace and turn the page quickly.”
Perez was asked if he struggled more in this year’s qualifying session than last year when he get knocked out in Q2, saying that today’s was harder as balance limitations held him back.
“I think here it’s been much more of a struggle than last year, because last year it was down to the conditions. It was damp and I went out in Q2. I think here it was more of a balance limitation that I struggled with. The gap to Max has been a little bit too far this weekend. So we’ve got some work to do in that regard.”
