Sergio Perez was demoted from a grid spot of P16 to a pitlane start for the Qatar Sprint after changes were made to his suspension setup in parc ferme. He had struggled through Sprint Qualifying for mid-corner speed, but sitting in traffic before opening his final push lap cost him tyre temperature, front-end and ultimately a chance at going through to SQ2.
Speaking after this disappointing result as pressure mounts on Perez, he said “it’s a shame because I feel we really progressed with the car from P1 [free practice 1] to Sprint Qualifying”. But he also confessed that it would be “tough to come through the field” over the course of the Sprint, which appears to have made Red Bull decide to turn the session into more of a test in the search for a solution to Perez’s pace problem.
But come the start of the 19 lap race and the light going green at the end of the pitlane, signalling to Perez and Franco Colapinto, who also had a pitlane start, that they could join the race, and there was no movement from Perez. This triggered an overtake in the pitlane from Colapinto, who wasn’t keen to hang around for the three seconds that Perez did and prompted Perez’s engineer, Hugh Bird, to ask him to “please start”.
Post-Sprint, Perez explained this moment as being strategic in helping him gain as much clean air as possible. “The main objective of today was to be as further back as possible to have as much clean air as possible, that was the objective.” However, Christian Horner held a different view, pondering that his driver was “caught napping” by the green light. “I need to have a chat with him,” he said.
Whether a test session was always on the cards, or whether the start delay prompted a change in strategy, Red Bull did opt to bring Perez in for a front wing/nose change on lap 16. Christian Horner said this choice arose from it being a session where they weren’t “going to score points with him” so “it was better to get as much knowledge as we could.”
In Horner’s opinion, the team “managed to get some useful data from Checo in that race” and Sergio himself said, “I think we managed to understand the car with the changes we have done, I think there is some room to improve what we have to do going forwards. We have to try and bring a little bit more balance to the car.”
