Horner baffled by latest Perez howler

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was left baffled after the Qatar sprint, following Sergio Perez’s latest howler.

Perez started the sprint race at the Lusail International Circuit from the pit lane, due to Red Bull making a suspension set up change during parc ferme. 

The Mexican driver was joined at the end of the pit lane by Franco Colapinto, as Williams also made changes during parc ferme. 

Colapinto was behind Perez at the end of the pit lane but, bizarrely, joined the circuit ahead of him. 

Replays showed that Perez failed to respond to the light at the end of the pit lane turning green, before eventually pulling away very slowly. 

A confused Colapinto overtook the 35-year-old, who remained stationary for two entire seconds after the light went green. 

Horner put Perez’s error down to misjudgement, before making a striking claim about what should happen at the start of a race.

“I don’t know, I need to have a chat with him about it,” Horner told Sky Sports F1. 

“It looked like he just misjudged it. But, yeah, when the light goes out, you’re supposed to go.”

It was an overall disappointing sprint for Perez who finished in last, following a late pit-stop for a new front wing. 

“Again, part of that testing process,” said Horner, when explaining why Perez pitted. “We got a bit of data out of it, and there was no chance we were going to score any points [with Perez]. 

“So we may as well use that session to get something out of it. So, we changed the [front wing] and tried something a bit different, which gives us and the engineers some good information for qualifying a little bit later.”