Perez blames incident with Leclerc after latest round one exit in qualifying · RaceFans

Sergio Perez said an incident with Charles Leclerc led to his elimination in the first round of qualifying for the sprint race in Losail.

The Red Bull driver failed to progress to the second stage of qualifying for the second time in a week. He was also eliminated in Q1 at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Perez started his final run at a disadvantage as he crossed the starting line alongside Charles Leclerc and had to overtake the Ferrari as they went into the first corner. His best time of 1’22.718 was almost seven-tenths of a second slower than that of team mate Max Verstappen. Perez will start tomorrow’s race 16th, 10 places behind his team mate.

“We left a little bit late,” Perez told the official F1 channel, “we had an issue with one of the anti-roll bars.

“Then to get my final lap, we were all opening laps and then Charles came and we were fighting in turn one and so on, and lost a couple of tenths there, enough to be knocked out unfortunately. It was a shame because I felt like we really progressed with the car from FP1 to qualifying. We had a lot more potential and it’s a shame that we just ended up here.”

The Red Bull driver does not expect he will be able to salvage any points from tomorrow’s sprint race.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult,” he said. “I think for now we will we focus on the rest of the weekend. In such a short race, I don’t think there will be a lot that we can do. But we will try.”

Perez has had a poor run of qualifying results in recent races. He started 18th at home in Mexico, 13th for the sprint race at Interlagos, 12th for the Brazilian Grand Prix and 15th in Las Vegas last weekend.

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