Perez blames Leclerc ‘fight’ as Red Bull future takes another blow

Sergio Perez suffered another damaging blow to his hopes of retaining his Red Bull seat for next season with his latest qualifying shocker, on this occasion finding two excuses to add to his growing list.

Perez is on a run of eight successive qualifying sessions without making it into the top-10 shoot-out. For the Qatar sprint, the Mexican driver will start 16th after getting knocked out in SQ1.

It is a sorry tale of woe for Perez, piling on the pressure as Red Bull weighs up whether to honour a new contract that was only signed at the start of June or replace him with either favourite Liam Lawson or RB team-mate Yuki Tsunoda for 2025.

At the Lusail International Circuit, Perez was noticeably involved in a late squabble with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc going into Turn 1 he claims heavily compromised him on his final push lap after an issue with his RB20.

After missing out by 0.013s on a place in SQ2 to Lawson and Williams’ Alex Albon, who set an identical time, Perez said: “Unfortunately, we left it a little bit late.

“We had a bit of an issue with one of the anti-roll bars, and then on my final lap, we were all opening gaps, and Charles came. We were fighting into Turn 1 and I lost a couple of tenths there, enough to be knocked out.

“It was a shame because I felt we really progressed with the car from FP1 to qualifying, [there was] a lot more potential, and it’s a shame we ended up here.”

As to whether Perez can make progress in the sprint, he feels his attention needs to turn to the main qualifying session ahead of the grand prix.

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