Tag: Sergio Perez

Perez overhauls Leclerc for Baku sprint win

Sergio Perez eased to a comfortable victory at the Azerbaijan sprint ahead of Charles Leclerc. Perez started from second alongside Leclerc but couldn’t jump the Ferrari off the line. The race was then neutralized at the end of the first lap with a …

Sergio Perez eased to a comfortable victory at the Azerbaijan sprint ahead of Charles Leclerc.

Perez started from second alongside Leclerc but couldn’t jump the Ferrari off the line. The race was then neutralized at the end of the first lap with a safety car owing to Yuki Tsunoda crashing his car at Turn 14.

Leclerc managed the restart beautifully when the race resumed on lap 6 of 17, but his SF-23 wasn’t a match for the RB19’s straight-line speed, particularly with DRS enabled down the long front straight.

On lap 8 Perez had breezed past, his rear wing wide open, and he galloped to a straightforward victory by 4.463s.

“To get away with maximum points today was the main objective, but obviously we know that tomorrow is the main race,” Perez said. “I think there was good learning today.

“P3 (on the grid) is not ideal for tomorrow’s race, but I’ll give it a go and fight for the win.”

Leclerc tried to stick with Perez, but his attention soon had to turn rearwards, where Max Verstappen had appeared after recovering from a slow start.

Verstappen was sucked into a battle with George Russell off the line that saw the two make contact into Turn 2 as the Mercedes car attempted a dive down the inside.

The light collision inflicted some bodywork damage to the Red Bull machine – including a big gash down the left-hand sidepod – and Verstappen then did himself no favors by kissing the wall at the outside of Turn 3, which handed Russell the position shortly before the safety car intervened.

Verstappen struck back at the restart and set his sights on the top two, but his damaged car wasn’t up to the task of closing down the Ferrari despite getting within DRS range, and Leclerc was allowed to escape with second position.

The Monegasque said the result confirmed his suspicions that Ferrari still hasn’t closed the gap in race pace.

“It confirms a little bit what we thought,” he said. “The Red Bull still has the upper hand in the race.

“But we again must not forget how far we were behind in race pace two races ago. We did a step forward.”

Verstappen was still fuming about the Russell incident after getting out of the car and accosted the Briton in parc ferme.

“I just don’t understand why you need to take so much risk on lap one,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense.

“It’s fine. We still got into P3, got some good points, but it is what it is.”

The gaps through much of the field stabilized in the final three or four laps as drivers struggled to keep their tires from graining.

George Russell kept Carlos Sainz at bay to secure fourth, while Fernando Alonso moved up from eighth to sixth after his Aston Martin’s faulty DRS started working again.

Lewis Hamilton pipped Lance Stroll in the final points-paying places of seventh and eighth.

Alex Albon finished ninth ahead of Oscar Piastri, Kevin Magnussen, Zhou Guanyu, Pierre Gasly and Nyck de Vries.

Nico Hulkenberg had been battling with Haas teammate Magnussen but suffered sudden onset of tire graining in the final few laps that dropped him to 15th.

Valtteri Bottas was one of two drivers to start on the soft tire rather than mediums and complained his rubber was “melting” in the closing stage of the sprint.

He finished only just ahead of Lando Norris, who was the other soft-starting driver, but the Briton pitted for mediums on lap 10 in a strategy decision that will surely have generated some useful data for the team ahead of Sunday.

Esteban Ocon was the final finisher after starting from pit lane owing to a suspension change made in parc ferme. He will also have to start Sunday’s grand prix from the pits.

Verstappen reveals key error that cost him pole

Max Verstappen was left ruing a different tire preparation lap before his crucial final Q3 lap that he believes cost him pole position to Charles Leclerc for Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Verstappen and Leclerc were neck and neck after their first …

Max Verstappen was left ruing a different tire preparation lap before his crucial final Q3 lap that he believes cost him pole position to Charles Leclerc for Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Verstappen and Leclerc were neck and neck after their first laps but the Ferrari driver pulled away with his second attempt to seal top spot by 0.188s. The difference all came from the second sector, in particular from the exit of the castle section at the top of the hill and the long run down to Turn 15, what is effectively the penultimate corner.

It’s the first pole position of the season for a team other than Red Bull Racing, but rather than it signifying a swing in momentum or even a setup error, Verstappen put the loss of top spot down to a misjudgment preparing his tires for his final lap.

“It’s tough to put the whole lap together round here and also the last run in Q3 was maybe not as clean, because we also tried a different out-lap and I didn’t really feel it was better,” he said. “When you have that feeling already then you’re not as confident as the lap before. I think that’s also why the lap time didn’t really come out of it.”

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Verstappen said he overheated the Pirelli soft compound, a mistake triggered in part by the lack of practice time under the sprint format.

“We just tried to put a bit more temperature in them,” he said. “After FP1 I think sometimes you are not fully understanding what you want to do for qualifying.

“The first one was good but still not perfect, so we tried a bit of work and it looks amazing; that’s a bit what happened in Australia, but this time I guess it didn’t work.”

Verstappen doesn’t consider the front-row start any great loss, however, noting that the RB19 has been habitually better in racing conditions than in qualifying, a trend he says was borne out in the practice data.

“At the end of the day it’s also not really bad for us,” he said. “We have a really good race car but it has never been super dominant over a single lap. I felt quite good with the little long run we did and I think we will learn a little bit more tomorrow during the sprint qualifying and race, which probably gives you even more of an idea for Sunday.”

“We know we have a quick race car and we have to try and use that on Sunday. We all know the points are on Sunday, so I don’t mind being a bit slower on Saturday and quick on Sunday — or whatever with the formats now. Can I still say that? Sunday? Saturday?”

Teammate Sergio Perez said he also had trouble judging tire warm-up on his way to third on the grid, though he appeared struggle with rubber that was too cold judging by a snap of oversteer through Turn 3 on his final lap.

“Just to get through without making mistakes, without much practice, it was really challenging,” he said. “I’m a bit disappointed to be sitting P3 — I felt definitely there was more in it; my lap wasn’t that clean. But if there a place where you can race, it’s definitely here.”

Brake balance issue behind Perez’s Saturday woes

Red Bull needs to fix a brake balance issue that Sergio Perez says was the cause of his off in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix. Perez had a torrid time in final practice on Saturday, running off track on four occasions and complaining about …

Red Bull needs to fix a brake balance issue that Sergio Perez says was the cause of his off in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

Perez had a torrid time in final practice on Saturday, running off track on four occasions and complaining about an issue, before duly getting stuck in the gravel at Turn 3 on his first flying lap of Q1. Without a time to his name in qualifying he will line-up 20th on the grid, and Perez says Red Bull has work to do to fix his car’s gremlins.

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“We had a bit of a technical issue already from FP3 and we thought we’d fixed that, but we obviously didn’t and it was really difficult,” Perez said. “Very difficult to do anything out there, just braking I became a passenger as soon as I touched the brakes. It’s something that is moving the brake balance quite far forwards under braking and I just hope we are able to fix it as a team tomorrow and be able to race and minimize the damage.”

And Perez admits the car isn’t in a competitive state to race if the problem isn’t resolved overnight.

“It was just changing the brake balance quite far forwards as soon as I was braking, so a really difficult one.

“No (you can’t drive the car like that), that’s why it will be very important to fix it for tomorrow … I trust totally my team that we will be able to overcome this problem and be able to have a strong race pace.”

The Mexican is one point behind team-mate Max Verstappen in the early championship standings but says the incident shows how hard Red Bull is pushing to have the advantage it has enjoyed so far this year.

“It shows the margins already in qualifying how close everyone is. If we are not able to put it all together every single Saturday and Sunday the competition is very strong.”

Verstappen paces Australia FP3 while Perez struggles

Max Verstappen has topped final practice at the Australian Grand Prix as Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Perez struggled with apparent car issues. Verstappen saved his soft-tire run until late, setting a best time of 1m17.565s to pip Aston Martin’s …

Max Verstappen has topped final practice at the Australian Grand Prix as Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Perez struggled with apparent car issues.

Verstappen saved his soft-tire run until late, setting a best time of 1m17.565s to pip Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso by 0.162s. Esteban Ocon completed the top three for Alpine, a further 0.211s adrift.

Teammate Perez endured a nightmare session with car problems that have left him underdone ahead of qualifying.

The Mexican, who is just one point behind in the championship table, spent the first 20 minutes of the session in the garage with work being undertaken on the rear of his car, but when he took to the track he reported bad car balance and an unusually loose rear end.

His first soft run was badly hampered by traffic, including a clash with Nico Hulkenberg, who almost put him in the outside wall on the run to Turn 11, while his second was ruined by a big lock-up into Turn 3 and a skip through the gravel.

Perez rejoined the track for a third stint on a new set of softs in the final 10 minutes, but again the lap was sketchy, and he ended up running through the grass at the penultimate corner on his first attempt, scrubbing his tires.

When he eventually strung a lap together, he was sixth and 0.558s adrift of his teammate, and promptly overran at Turn 2 for yet another trip through the stones.

“Ugh, I cannot believe this session,” he said.

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To cap off his horror practice run, he arrived too late at the end of pit lane to do a practice start, forcing his mechanics to wheel him back to his garage.

Into the gap between Perez and his session-leading teammate slotted George Russell in fourth, who reported a lot of bottoming-out in his Mercedes car, and Pierre Gasly, whose Alpine was more than half a second adrift.

Rain stayed away for all but the final minutes of the hour, but overcast skies meant conditions remained chilly. The air temperature hovered just beneath 60 degrees F throughout the session, with the track temperature refusing to budge above 80 degrees F.

The late drops of rain almost undid Carlos Sainz’s afternoon when he slid off the road and towards the barriers at Turn 11, though the Spaniard came to a halt harmlessly in the barriers to claim seventh in the order.

Lewis Hamilton finished eighth ahead of Lance Stroll, while Zhou Guanyu completed the top 10 despite spinning his car through Turn 1-2 and just nudging the outside barrier, fortunately without damaging his Alfa Romeo.

Hulkenberg was 11th for Haas ahead of Alex Albon and Charles Leclerc, who had a long run through the gravel at Turn 1 late, while local favorite Oscar Piastri was 14th ahead of Valtteri Bottas.

Yuki Tsunoda was 16th ahead of Logan Sargeant, Kevin Magnussen and Nyck de Vries, while Lando Norris propped up the time sheet for McLaren in 20th, though the Briton never used the soft tire, instead spending the entire hour on mediums.

Perez proud to match pace when Verstappen threat emerged

Sergio Perez says he was able to match Max Verstappen’s pace when his teammate emerged as a threat for victory in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Verstappen started from 15th place and was climbing through the field into the top four when a Safety Car …

Sergio Perez says he was able to match Max Verstappen’s pace when his teammate emerged as a threat for victory in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Verstappen started from 15th place and was climbing through the field into the top four when a Safety Car allowed him to make a pit stop and retain position. At the time, Perez had held a comfortable lead after passing Fernando Alonso and was some 20s clear of Verstappen, but the Red Bulls were running one-two from the halfway point, with the Mexican able to keep the gap above 4s for the rest of the race.

“It was going well. When I overtook Fernando I thought I could do my race,” Perez said. “But then the Safety Car again wanted to take the victory away from me in Jeddah, but not this time! We managed to get a good distance with Max; we kept a healthy lead and that went well.

“I’m proud of getting the victory. We know how strong Max is in the races and we’ve been matching him in Bahrain, we matched him here, so we have to keep working really hard. I think my team is doing a great job. We managed to get a good read on the high fuel, so I’m proud of my team today.”

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Verstappen posted the fastest lap right at the end after the race was called off between the two drivers, but Perez says he wasn’t aware he could try and secure the extra point himself.

“I was told to keep a certain pace in the end. It’s something we need to check because I was told to keep the pace and not try anything.”

Despite that confusion, Perez says the level Red Bull is operating at doesn’t get enough credit after another dominant victory for the team.

“I’m really proud of the performance from the team; the guys have worked their (rears) off and what they’ve done this weekend, it’s impressive to see from the outside. So I’m really happy for them first of all — really this victory goes to them, and just to Milton Keynes. They brought such a fantastic car.

“And the team — I love being part of Red Bull Racing because the way we push, the way we deliver, everyone is working at the maximum. We are at such a high level that people outside of the team probably don’t realize. From Christian (Horner) to everyone in this team…really delivering and operating at a very high level, so it’s great to be part of.”

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Perez leads dominant Red Bull one-two in Saudi Arabian GP

Sergio Perez beat teammate Max Verstappen to victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in another dominant one-two result for Red Bull Racing. Pole-getter Perez’s race was almost perfect but for his tardy launch off the line that handed an early lead …

Sergio Perez beat teammate Max Verstappen to victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in another dominant one-two result for Red Bull Racing.

Pole-getter Perez’s race was almost perfect but for his tardy launch off the line that handed an early lead to second-place starter Fernando Alonso — who didn’t need to be asked twice to take the straighter line through the first chicane and take first place.

But it became quickly obvious that the Aston Martin was no match for the Red Bull Racing car. Perez bided his time until lap four, when he blasted back into the lead with the help of a super-effective DRS, and never looked back, with his way being eased by a lap-17 safety car that gifted him an easy pit stop.

Perez’s only threat came from teammate Verstappen, who started 15th on the grid after a failed driveshaft in qualifying. The Dutchman took just eight laps to rise into the top 10 and was still within Perez’s pit stop window when the safety car was deployed.

He shook out from the caution pit stops in fourth but was rapidly up to third ahead of George Russell, and within five laps of the restart Verstappen was into second place ahead of Alonso to begin his pursuit of the lead.

Verstappen was given a lap time target of 1m33s, but regularly appeared to ignore the instruction, diving easily into the 1m32s to slice the gap to his teammate. Even worries for his driveshaft, about which he radioed his team that he could feel vibrations at high speed, weren’t enough to deter him from his goal.

Perez was eventually told that Verstappen was ignoring instruction to manage his pace and reluctantly sped up, asking rhetorically whether both cars should be risking problems by pushing so hard, but he had enough in hand to break Verstappen’s challenge to win by 5.3s.

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“It turned out to be tougher than I expected,” he said. “The team did a fantastic job.

“We will keep pushing hard. The important thing I think is we were the fastest car out there today, so I’m very pleased with that.”

Verstappen consoled himself with a bonus point for fastest lap, set on the final tour of the race against instruction from his pit wall, to retain the title lead over Perez by a single point.

“It wasn’t very easy to get through the field,” he said. “Once I cleared them one by one we got into a good rhythm, and of course I’m very happy to be here on the podium.”

Alonso’s glorious start didn’t last long, but the Aston Martin driver again comfortably outdistanced all but the Red Bulls…at least on the track. Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images

Alonso finished third at the flag for his 100th podium but was stripped of the place in the aftermath for incorrectly serving a 5s penalty during his sole pit stop.

Alonso had been penalized for starting too far left in his grid box, but his rear jack was engaged before the five seconds had expired, which is against the rules. The stewards handed him a post-race 10s penalty, demoting him to fourth behind Mercedes driver George Russell.

Russell had been told to push late in the race to capitalize on the possible penalty, finishing 5.1s behind the Spaniard. Teammate Lewis Hamilton, however, couldn’t bridge the gap. He finished fifth and 10.3s behind Alonso, leaving him in his position at the flag.

Although the penalty made that podium appearance illusory, Alonso remained delighted by his Aston Martin car’s level of performance.

“What a start of a season,” he said. “Probably unthinkable one month ago when we launched the car, but these guys made a fantastic car.

“I pushed all the way through like qualifying laps. Red Bull is maybe a little bit out of reach, but the rest were behind, so I’m happy with that.”

Alonso came under late scrutiny from the stewards room for incorrectly serving a five-second penalty at his sole stop, earned for starting too far left in his grid box. His rear jack appeared to be engaged at the back of the car before the five seconds had been served, which would be a breach of the rules. The resulting 10-second penalty — the same handed Esteban Ocon for a similar offense last time out in Bahrain — promoted Mercedes’ Russell into third, though teammate Lewis Hamilton remained fifth after a straightforward race for the seven-time champion.

Both Mercedes cars had more than enough pace in hand to keep Ferrari covered. Neither Carlos Sainz nor Charles Leclerc was competitive on the hard tire, with Leclerc’s recovery from 12th with an engine penalty all thanks to his opening stint on softs.

Alpine teammates Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly battled among themselves for eighth and ninth, with Kevin Magnussen beating Yuki Tsunoda to the final point of the race in 10th despite a very early first pit stop on lap eight.

P # DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME PTS
1 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 50 1:21:14.894 0
2 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 50 +5.355s 0
3 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 50 +20.728s 0
4 63 George Russell MERCEDES 50 +25.866s 0
5 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 50 +31.065s 0
6 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 50 +35.876s 0
7 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 50 +43.162s 0
8 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 50 +52.832s 0
9 10 Pierre Gasly ALPINE RENAULT 50 +54.747s 0
10 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 50 +64.826s 0
11 22 Yuki Tsunoda ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT 50 +67.494s 0
12 27 Nico Hulkenberg HAAS FERRARI 50 +70.588s 0
13 24 Zhou Guanyu ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 50 +76.060s 0
14 21 Nyck De Vries ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT 50 +77.478s 0
15 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 50 +85.021s 0
16 2 Logan Sargeant WILLIAMS MERCEDES 50 +86.293s 0
17 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 50 +86.445s 0
18 77 Valtteri Bottas ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 49 +1 lap 0
NC 23 Alexander Albon WILLIAMS MERCEDES 27 DNF 0
NC 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 16 DNF 0

* Provisional results. Note – Verstappen scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race.

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Perez concerned with reliability in spite of Saudi GP pole

Sergio Perez admits there are always concerns over reliability despite qualifying on pole position for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Max Verstappen failed to set a lap time in Q2 due to a driveshaft failure and will line-up 15th on the grid, with …

Sergio Perez admits there are always concerns over reliability despite qualifying on pole position for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen failed to set a lap time in Q2 due to a driveshaft failure and will line-up 15th on the grid, with Perez making the most of his teammate’s misfortune to secure the second pole position of his career. Repeating his result from last year in Jeddah, Perez says the nature of the street circuit means he’s still not banking on a victory from pole.

“There’s always reliability concerns, especially around this place,” Perez said. “It is so easy to make damage to the cars and at the end of the day, there will always be reliability concerns. But hopefully not tomorrow.

“It’s a shame, you know. Max has been really strong the whole weekend. So hopefully tomorrow we can have both cars up there, as you never know with these cars, reliability issues can hit you at any time.”

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Verstappen had looked dominant up to the point of his issue and is still targeting the podium on Sunday, but Perez isn’t concerned about his teammate catching him if he can keep Fernando Alonso at bay.

“I am not going to approach the race tomorrow thinking about Max. First of all, I have to make sure I’m able to keep the lid on the initial laps. And if I’m able to do that, to keep this lion (Alonso) behind, it will be good, because I think I can focus on my race.”

Perez was able to beat Charles Leclerc — who has a grid penalty — to pole by a little over 0.15s after his first Q3 run proved good enough, and he says there’s an added thrill to qualifying on the high-speed street layout.

“When you have a good car that you can push around this place, you really feel the F1 cars coming alive. And getting a clean, good lap, you know when you nail it. That Q3 run one was quite a good jump. I had a good jump from all my previous laps, and that meant that I was able to get the pole, because my second lap, I didn’t manage to get it.

“I just had a front lock going into Turn 1. That has been really tricky. Turn 1 and Turn 2, always starting the lap into 1 and 2, it was so easy just to lose two tenths (of a second) straightaway there, especially with the low downforce that we’re running. And just nailing that combination of corners will require a lot of temperature on our tires as well, so just in general, just getting that lap, nailing that lap, was really nice.”

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Perez on second straight Saudi GP pole as Verstappen breaks

Sergio Perez has taken a second straight Saudi Arabian Grand Prix pole position after teammate Max Verstappen exited qualifying in 15th with a driveshaft issue. Verstappen was on his first flying lap of Q2 when his driveshaft suddenly let go, …

Sergio Perez has taken a second straight Saudi Arabian Grand Prix pole position after teammate Max Verstappen exited qualifying in 15th with a driveshaft issue.

Verstappen was on his first flying lap of Q2 when his driveshaft suddenly let go, forcing him to limp back to pit lane, where his car couldn’t be repaired in time to rejoin the session. Red Bull had just changed the gearbox before FP3 earlier in the day.

The Dutchman won from as far back as 14th at last year’s Belgian Grand Prix. The last driver to win from 15th was Fernando Alonso at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

“Anything is possible at this track,” Verstappen told Sky Sports. “We’ve seen a lot of crazy things.”

Without the Dutchman in the frame, Perez needed just one lap in his formidable Red Bull Racing machine to secure top spot with a pole time of 1m 28.265s.

Charles Leclerc ran him close, to within 0.155s, but the Monegasque will serve a 10-place grid penalty for a power unit component change this weekend, dropping him to 12th.

“Happy yes and no,” Leclerc said. “On one hand I think it’s been a very difficult weekend in terms of pace for us, but I’m very happy about our lap.”

The grid drop promotes Fernando Alonso to the front row for Aston Martin after the Spaniard was 0.465s off the pace.

“It has been a very good weekend for us,” the former World Champion said. “Qualifying was our weak point in Bahrain, but today the car seemed to perform very well on one lap. Let’s see tomorrow what we can do from here.”

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George Russell was fourth fastest for Mercedes at 0.592s adrift, pipping Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari. Lance Stroll was sixth fastest ahead of Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Lewis Hamilton in the second Mercedes.

Oscar Piastri made his first Q3 appearance in Formula 1 to put his McLaren ninth fastest ahead of Pierre Gasly in the second Alpine car.

Haas and Alfa Romeo battled in the midfield for an unlikely spot in Q3, and though neither team managed it, Nico Hulkenberg and Zhou Guanyu will be promoted to 10th and 11th by Leclerc’s penalty. Leclerc will line up 12th ahead of Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas.

Yuki Tsunoda was knocked out in Q1 by just 0.01s to line up 16th.

Alex Albon qualified 17th ahead of Nyck de Vries, who struggled with his first laps of the day after skipping FP3 to have his AlphaTauri’s power unit changed. The Dutchman suffered a major rear axle lock-up at the first corner that spun him around, and he said he made a mistake in the last corner that cost him a shot at improving.

Lando Norris could only manage 19th after hitting the apex wall on the final corner, breaking his left-front suspension and requiring repairs that couldn’t be completed in time to send him out for another lap.

Logan Sargeant was last, without a time, after having his fastest lap — which would have seen him through to Q2 — deleted for crossing the pit entry line out of the last corner. He spun through the turn 22-23 chicane on his second attempt, and his third attempt was undone at that same chicane, where he broke his car riding the curbs.

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