Sergio Perez explains the reasons for his “disaster” in qualifying at Monaco
According to Sergio Perez, his poor Q1 was due to the presence of advertising stickers that had fallen on the track and the traffic in the streets of the Principality. The Mexican will start the race in 18th position on Sunday.
A disaster, that’s the word Sergio Pérez chose to define his (disastrous, we can say) Q1 in Monaco. The Mexican completely missed his qualifying session, only placing 18th for the Sunday’s race. And knowing the difficulties (even the impossibility) of overtaking in the streets of the Principality, the Red Bull driver has slim chances of leaving with any points in his pocket.
This will not be good for the Austrian team in the constructors’ standings. Although they still have a 56-point lead over Ferrari, it will practically take a miracle to not see Scuderia dangerously close the gap at the end of the race this Sunday, with Charles Leclerc starting in pole position and Carlos Sainz in third place.
Stickers and traffic
According to Sergio Perez, his poor Q1 was due to… the presence of advertising stickers fallen on the track because of the drivers who regularly hit the walls before him. “It was a disaster because first of all, on my lap, I encountered a lot of traffic in turn 6, in turn 7 and there were stickers placed on the apex of turn 8 so I had to avoid all that,” explained the Mexican to journalists after the qualifying session.
I ended up losing a few tenths that would have been enough to pass. I was half a second off P1 so it was just a complete disaster, unfortunately. Basically, the weekend is completely over because here, there is no chance of overtaking, he lamented, realistic.
The Red Bull driver seems particularly frustrated with the way things have turned out after experiencing an improvement in Free Practice 3. « This morning, we found the light. You know, I was P5. We made some additional changes, but unfortunately, they were not enough to move us forward. »
« And it hurts, because I think that with a simple normal turn, it would have been enough, but with the traffic we encountered, it was really difficult », he added.
A Red Bull not suited for Monaco, according to Horner
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has commented on the poor performance of the cars after qualifying. “It was difficult all weekend. The car was not suited to the characteristics of this circuit. Until the last run, everything from second to sixth place was up for grabs, but unfortunately we couldn’t take part in that last run,” explained the Briton to Sky Sports F1.
« The first sector was strong for us. It was mainly the tight hairpin, then turn five and turn ten », he added.
Just like the Mexican driver, Christian Horner is being very pragmatic about the race on Sunday. The race is almost over without safety cars. But we will come back fighting, he assured.
