If it were up to Sergio Perez, Formula 1 would probably always race in Jeddah. The Red Bull driver has conquered two pole positions in his career and both have arrived on the very fast Saudi circuit. Just like a year ago, he will in fact be the one to shoot at the post.
And just like a year ago he got the better of Charles Leclerc at the end of a tighter than expected Q3, beating the Ferrari driver by just 155 thousandths. The big difference, however, is that tomorrow there will be a really important chance of victory, because the Ferrari driver will drop back to 12th having replaced the ECU on his SF-23. Furthermore, his teammate Max Verstappen broke a drive shaft during Q2 and is therefore only 15th on the grid.
In the heat, however, the Mexican does not seem to have given too much weight to this thing, underlining that it was not easy to bring home today’s result, given that in fact he completed only one attempt in Q3, which luckily was almost perfect .
Poleman Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing, arrives at Parco delle Ferme
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
“Q3 was difficult, mainly because I wasn’t able to do the second lap. The first was very good, clean, and luckily that was enough. On a circuit like this you feel just like the Formula 1 cars come to life, so making the most of that lap was very important, because then we had a little problem in the last attempt and the track was improving,” said Perez as he got off his RB19.
Regarding the technical problem that hit his team-mate, he added: “It’s a shame. Max was really strong all weekend. So let’s hope that tomorrow we can get both cars to the finish line, because with these cars You never know, reliability issues can hit you at any time.”
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