Double surprise for Red Bull: Max Verstappen is on pole in Imola, team-mate Sergio Perez flies out in Q2 and complains about too much grip
There were two surprises in the Red Bull camp during qualifying for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola. On the one hand, Max Verstappen unexpectedly secured pole position with the help of Haas driver Nico Hülkenberg, and on the other, team-mate Sergio Perez was eliminated in eleventh place in the second qualifying segment. The curious reason: too much grip on the RB20
The Mexican already had some problems in Q1 and had to use two fresh soft tires, which led to him using a used set for his first run in Q2 in order to have two fresh soft tires for Q3 later on. However, when he switched from the used Pirelli to a new one for his final Q2 run, Perez was surprised by the grip of the new tire.
“When I put the new tire on in Q2, I got a lot of grip at the rear and went too wide into turn seven,” said an annoyed Perez. “I lost two and a half tenths there and, given the extremely close gaps, I just didn’t make the cut. “
Data show: Perez loses over 3 tenths in the first sector
Looking at his two Q2 laps, Perez was able to improve by just 0.147 seconds on the new tire, with 0.141 seconds coming from the final sector alone. In the first two sections of the track, Perez therefore only managed an improvement of six thousandths of a second. He was just 0.015 seconds off Daniel Ricciardo in the Racing Bulls to make it into Q3.
However, Perez lost most of the time to his team-mate Max Verstappen, who was 0.530 seconds faster in Q2, in the first sector. He lost 0.338 seconds on the Dutchman in this section, so the second sector with turn seven did not make the biggest difference in terms of time
However, the weekend did not go smoothly for the world champion team, for which Perez has an explanation: “I think one of the main problems is the handling, especially on the kerbs. And simply the balance. You need the confidence at the entrance to attack the medium-fast corners and the braking corners. If the balance isn’t right, it can be very expensive. “
Perez: “We had actually made progress “
“We had actually made some good progress this morning, including on the long runs,” said the 34-year-old. “We’ve been playing with the car a lot all weekend. But I think I’ve had a pretty strong weekend so far in terms of pace, long run pace and confidence. It was just an unfortunate qualifying. When I see Max up there, we definitely had the pace to do a lot more today.”
Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko agrees on the Sky microphone: “Perez had an unfortunate run. He was initially only on used [tires] and then when he was on new tires he was surprised by the grip. I think it was in turn 7 where he lost three tenths. “
