“The weekend is basically completely over,” was Sergio Perez’s devastating conclusion after qualifying in Monaco. The Red Bull driver started the race in Monaco from 18th position. On race tracks like Monza or Spa-Francorchamps, that probably wouldn’t have been the end of the world. In Monaco, that’s almost synonymous with the end of the weekend. Overtaking? Hardly possible in Monaco. The traffic on the Formula 1 race track is said to be to blame for the poor placing.
Perez: Qualifying round in Monaco a disaster
It was particularly bitter for Sergio Perez: The gaps were particularly close in qualifying in Monaco. In 18th place, Perez was five tenths of a second behind the leader. “It was a disaster on my lap. I had traffic in turns six and seven. In turn eight there were things on the ground that I had to avoid,” explained Perez himself.
However, Perez did not seem particularly fast in the previous laps either. The Mexican never made it into the top 10 in his last attempts. In his last attempt, two cars, including Max Verstappen, made way for him. He did not improve his time at all on this lap. Otherwise, no other car is visible in this area.
On his fastest lap, he encounters light traffic in the area of turns six and seven from a Mercedes and an Aston Martin. The Mercedes makes way early on, however, only the Aston Martin may have cost Perez some time. But by no means almost two tenths. That is how much separated Perez from 15th place in the end. Logan Sarteant will also start the Grand Prix ahead of the Red Bull.
“Today the balance was also lacking,” said Perez. A problem that his teammate Max Verstappen also complained about. However, he still started in sixth place, despite a mistake in the last attempt in Q3.
“The basic problem is not the tracks, but that the correlation between the simulator and the track doesn’t work. In the simulator we drive over the curbs without any problems and here we hop like a kangaroo,” says Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko.
Perez writes off F1 weekend: No chance to overtake
“It hurts enormously, because a normal lap would have been enough to advance,” complains Perez. There are now seven cars between Sergio Perez and the first point. But Perez also sees few options in terms of strategy. “The weekend is basically completely over.”
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff put it even more harshly than Perez on Sky Germany. “I think we need rain to see any overtaking maneuvers at all. We saw that in Formula 2. Over and undercut don’t seem to help either, maybe we’ll just drive in circles tomorrow.”