Sergio Pérez is only moderately satisfied with his performance in Formula 1 qualifying at Silverstone, but at least he no longer has the aerodynamic problems from Friday.
Red Bull seems to have solved its aerodynamic problems with the car. After Friday practice, Sergio Pérez had complained that his car would feel completely different than what the team had expected from the simulations. On Saturday, the Mexican drove to the second row of the grid.
“We found the problem,” he says, suggesting that the problem had to do with installing the new parts. “Hopefully everything will go smoothly for tomorrow.”
The starting position could have been worse for him. Because after Friday, not everyone would necessarily have bet on starting from the second row. However, the Red Bull double lead after Saturday’s training session gave reason to hope that more could be achieved.
“Yes, there was definitely more to it,” Pérez admits, “but in the end it wasn’t ideal because I [Guanyu] Zhou was right in front of me for my last two laps. But fourth place in these conditions is not the end of the world. As long as we have a competitive car tomorrow we should be able to make good progress.”
But: It could have gone much worse. Q2 in particular was very difficult for “Checo”, as he says. “I didn’t have a good first lap and then it started raining.”
Pérez only narrowly averts “disaster”.
He only made it into the top 10 in eighth place. “That almost caught me on the wrong foot and I was almost thrown out of Q2. It could have been a disaster.”
So in the end it was still a halfway forgiving result. He sees it positively: “If fourth place is already a bad day, then tomorrow we only have to make up three positions and it’s already a good day,” he laughs.
Despite the difficult conditions on Friday, he believes it should be easy to pick up speed on Sunday. “And as long as we have a good strategy and things are going our way, we should be strong,” said the Red Bull driver, who certainly expects to be able to fight for victory: “Certainly,” he nods. “We have a chance.”