Once again, Sergio Perez’s gap to Max Verstappen was too big, meaning he will start outside the top 10 on Sunday due to his penalty
One thing you can’t accuse Sergio Perez of in Barcelona is being inconsistent. The Mexican finished eighth in all three qualifying sessions in Spain. That probably shows: that was the limit, more was simply not possible for him on Saturday.
However, team-mate Max Verstappen showed once again that there is definitely more to the Red Bull, having beaten Perez in all qualifying sessions this year – and usually more than clearly. He has only been closer than three tenths of a second to the Dutchman on two occasions, and most recently his gap was usually more than half a second – as was the case in Barcelona.
In the end, Perez was 0.678 seconds behind Verstappen. “The gap to Max was a bit too big this weekend,” he admits, “so we still have some work to do in that respect.”
But while Verstappen seems to be coping with the RB20 in all conditions, this does not appear to be the case for Perez. He had already admitted on Friday that he had experimented a lot with the car and got a bit lost in the process. “I think we had a few more difficulties than expected,” he says.
“The correlation can sometimes be good and sometimes not, and the tire issues also stood out a bit here, so it was quite difficult to find a direction over the weekend,” said Perez.
In qualifying, he then struggled with a poor final sector where he had lost too much time to himself – at least he was faster in Q2 than in the final section. “I think we could have been a bit closer, but we only had one [new] set of tires, so it was a bit difficult,” he says.
“But in general we were just too far away this weekend.”
However, Perez also says he has seen “light at the end of the tunnel”. “I feel like we made some good steps that made me feel a bit more comfortable,” he emphasizes. “The gaps are so small and I really need to find those tenths. I need that progress that I didn’t have this weekend. “
“But I think it will, and hopefully tomorrow we will be able to show good race pace and turn the tide,” said the Red Bull driver. “We sacrificed qualifying a little in favor of better tire degradation.”
However, he will also need a good race, as he will not stay in eighth place on the grid due to his penalty from Canada. Because he also has to serve a three-place penalty, he will only start outside the top 10, which means he will have to perform a few overtaking maneuvers.
“Yes, we have to be really good and strong in that respect,” he says. “It’s going to be a long afternoon. Hopefully we can leave the people in front of us behind quickly and make some progress early in the race. “
