From nearly out in Q1 to P2: Perez reacts to Qualifying

It was a day that almost ended terribly for Sergio Perez at the Shanghai International Circuit. In Q1, he was just on the edge of making it through ahead of Guanyu Zhou, but the Mexican eventually found his rhythm and finished second behind Max Verstappen.

"I didn't have a good run in my first run of Q3, which really set me back. I don't know what happened. Obviously, the tyres were a little bit cooler. It was just a step back. We were playing around with the front wing. I felt like it just put us on the back foot for my final run," Sergio Perez began in China.

Fortunately for the Mexican’s sake, he did find enough lap time at the right moment. "Then all of a sudden, in the final run, I think the track was just getting quite a bit better. I managed to put a good lap together. I think up to that lap it had been a very messy qualifying, starting from Q1."

Story almost over for Perez in Q1

"I nearly was knocked out. I qualified 15th. I had traffic on my first attempt with the Williams and had to come back to the pit. I was just out of position a lot of the time. Unfortunately, with the change of wind, it was important to be out there at the right time to make sure that you get that progression, learning from these new conditions," the Mexican driver went through what happened. He was ahead by only less than a tenth of home favourite Guanyu Zhou.

What caused trouble for Perez?

"We did suffer a lot with the tyre degradation and with rear degradation especially," the Red Bull driver explained.

"Just making sure that we were able to have a more stable platform was important. But obviously, that doesn't come for free. You're making other compromises in different sorts of corner speeds. And, I just couldn't get a good read through the conditions. I think my first proper lap was in Q2, Run 2, then Run 1 in Q3 was quite far off," the Mexican concluded.