Perez blames Q1 elimination on braking issue with his car

Sergio Perez endured a nightmare qualifying session at his home race in Mexico City, managing only 18th place despite the passionate support from the stands.

Perez attributed his poor performance in the Mexican Grand Prix qualifying to braking issues with his car. After posting a time about two seconds slower than Carlos Sainz on Saturday, Perez will start Sunday’s race from 18th position. This marks Perez’s fifth Q1 elimination of the 2024 season. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner expressed disappointment over the large gap between Perez and second-placed Max Verstappen, yet Perez insisted the poor performance was due to technical issues with the RB20 car.

“I’m struggling a bit with braking,” Perez explained.
“Every time I try to brake, I’m putting too much energy on the tires, which makes it very difficult to stop the car.
“I can’t stop the car. I have to ease off on my braking a lot, which is something we can see in the data, but right now, we’re not able to fix it. Considering the track surface is sensitive here, it makes this issue much harder to manage.”
“Sunday will be more difficult since this braking issue also impacts race pace,” he added.
“I’ll try everything, and we’ll see what solutions the team and I can find.”
“Of course, it’s a very disappointing situation. I really wanted to do well at this Grand Prix. Unfortunately, this event has been very challenging and complicated.”
“We’ll discuss all our options. We’re really limited with available spare parts, and we don’t have the type of floor version we’d like to use. I don’t know; we’ll definitely discuss all this with the team.”

Perez’s prospects of remaining with Red Bull next season could also be affected by Liam Lawson’s performance. Lawson, who scored points with VCARB in Austin last week, qualified 12th in Mexico, outperforming Perez. Horner’s comments also didn’t seem to encourage Perez. “We need to look into this, but the gap between the two cars is quite large,” Horner said. “It’s obviously a disappointing situation for him in front of his home crowd, but I’m sure he’ll give it his all tomorrow. He has a lot of work to do.”