Red Bull ‘confusion’ adds to Perez misery

Sergio Perez cited ‘confusion’ inside Red Bull as to why he suffered another abysmal qualifying session that has left him facing an uphill battle in the São Paulo sprint.

After finishing SQ1 with a time quicker than team-mate Max Verstappen, it appeared as if a change to a former chassis on Perez’s RB20 might have unlocked a level of performance that has been missing for so long.

But then in what proved to be Perez’s first and only lap in SQ2, whilst a considerable improvement on that in SQ1, it quickly became evident it was not good enough to reach the top-10 shoot-out due to the speed at which the track evolved.

Verstappen, by contrast, only needed one lap in SQ2 to ensure his passage into the final session.

Although Perez embarked on a second run, it was too late, forcing him to abort, meaning he will start 13th on the grid.

“We had a good Q1 but then into Q2 we were struggling a little bit with the balance, we had a little bit of understeer with the track [temperature] coming down,” assessed Perez.

“We tried to correct with the brake balance and the tools I had available, it was a bit too rear-limited. Then, it was a bit confusing on the programme. We were told we might have a chance for a second lap. Unfortunately, we didn’t.”

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko offered a more succinct version of events as to why Perez did not make SQ3, laying the blame firmly at the door of the Mexican.

“The original plan was to do only one lap,” said Marko. “Unfortunately, it turned out too late that this lap was not enough.”