F1 News
Perez critical of himself: 'We could have been closer'
- Ludo van Denderen
After two dramatic qualifying sessions, Sergio Perez managed to get through to Q3, doing so at the Spanish Grand Prix. In it, he reached P8. However, when the lights go out for the Grand Prix on Sunday, the Red Bull Racing Mexican will start from outside the top 10, as he still has a three-spot grid penalty outstanding from the race in Canada. As a result, Perez was not entirely satisfied with Saturday in Barcelona.
To start with the positive: "Yes, I think we were finding the light out of the tunnel," said Perez afterwards, who then expressed regret that he lost too much time in the final sector in qualifying. "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. But overall, I think we've been a little bit too far this weekend."
Perez making strides, but not enough
In recent weeks, Perez has been working - including at Red Bull's factory - on the tuning of his car. "I feel like we've done some good steps, which made me feel a little bit more comfortable. Margins are so small, I think to really find those tenths, I needed the progression, and I didn't have the progression through the weekend. So we'll work on that and we will hopefully tomorrow, we will work on that."
Perez is nevertheless confident for Sunday because: "We have a good race car, we've worked 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 in that regard. So tomorrow is going to be a long afternoon. Hopefully, we are able to clear the people ahead quickly and make progress early on in the race."
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy