After having one of the most competitive weekends of his season in Azerbaijan so far, despite not collecting any points, Sergio Pérez went back to struggling on the warm night of Formula 1 in Singapore.
After not figuring in the top spots of any of the practice sessions, the Mexican driver faced qualifying on the 18th date of the 2024 F1 calendar with uncertainty. Even though he managed to get through Q1 with the fifth fastest lap time on his last attempt, Pérez was eliminated in Q2 after clocking a 1:30.579 flier when the time was out on the second part of the session, grabbing P13, 0.939s away from Piastri’s P1 benchmark of a 1:29.640, and 0.129s behind in Alonso’s 10th.
Out of the 18 qualifying sessions that have taken place in 2024 so far, the driver of the #11 Red Bull has got into Q3 in 13 of them, being eliminated in Q1 on 4 dates throughout the year (Monaco, Canada, Great Britain, and Hungary), with Singapore the first time the 34-year-old departed in Q2.
The Mexican debriefed his Saturday evening, where he explained the tricky nature of the circuit in Singapore — along with brake and tyre struggles — made it impossible for him to explain why his RB20 had a drop in pace between Q1 and Q2.
He only improved by half a tenth, not making big gains like the majority of cars.
“I don’t know,” he began.
“It was super, super tricky.
“I think it’s just the tyres being so picky around here. The grip, the ride, the track changing lap by lap. It’s just a very tricky place.
“Q1 was looking really nice and smooth. I actually had a mistake on my lap into turn 13 where I lost around 2-3 tenths, but I just went slower in Q2.
“For me in Q2 I had issues with the brakes and with the tyres. I think the brakes were running too hot and I was lacking quite a lot of bite from them.”
“And just the tyres were absolutely nowhere in that Q2. The two laps I did I had just no grip at all.”
However, he stated that the set-up in his car could mean Red Bull did not go in the right direction at the time of facing the conditions on Saturday night in Singapore.
Red Bull looked miles off the pace on Friday, although Pérez was the stronger driver in FP2 as he managed to go P8, seven places and 0.4s clear of Verstappen.
“Yeah, we changed quite a bit the car. I think we probably went in the wrong direction. It’s not so clear at the moment, but we certainly were on a nicer window yesterday and we just lost a lot of competitiveness.”
Pérez concluded expressing his expectations for Sunday’s race at Marina Bay could be just a matter of “damage limitation”.
“I think it’s going to be a very difficult race.
“Hopefully we can do some magic with the strategy and come through. Yeah, that will be the key for us.”
