Sergio Perez left his team a frustrated team radio message as he experienced “one of his worst” sessions since joining F1. The Red Bull driver was plagued with a series of incidents in FP3 in Melbourne which dented his qualifying preparation, and he then had a nightmare qualy which means he will start Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix in P20.
The Mexican first ran wide at turn three after locking up his front right tyres on the corner entry. Several laps later he went off track at turn one after his car refused to hit the apex.
However, the 33-year-old still had time to go off track at the penultimate corner in the dying moments of the session. Despite turning into the left-hander, he skidded off track and ran through the grass before rejoining.
After the final incident, Perez moaned: “I cannot believe this session.” Sky Sports F1 pundit Karun Chandhok issued a brutal response to the Red Bull star as he evaluated the practice session.
He explained: “He’s just got no confidence on the brakes… Literally this would be one of the worst sessions in Checo’s F1 career.” The confusion continued after Perez was forced to stop at the pit exit light after Red Bull mistimed his exit.
FP3 was more significant this weekend after poor weather limited running on Friday. The wet-dry conditions in FP2 meant teams were behind on their programmes, especially their long runs on dry tyres.
But, the problems got even worse for Perez whose car was still being worked on just minutes before qualifying. Ted Kravitz spotted the Red Bull’s front end ripped off as mechanics worked frantically to get their man back on track.
He told Sky Sports F1: “This is no April Fools joke, It’s still in bits… Checo had a disaster earlier on.” His team got him back on track but he suffered another problem just minutes into Q1. The session was suspended after Perez’s car was beached in the gravel at turn one, leaving him unable to set a qualifying time.
But, he appeared to blame the incident on his car rather than his own error, shouting over the radio: “We need to solve that issue man. It was the same f***ing issue again.”
Perez was left annoyed on Friday after admitting he was unable to get into the rhythm in a scrappy session. FP1 was stopped as officials sorted out a GPS issue while rain curtailed any meaningful running later in the day.
“It was a bit mental,” he said. “I think especially going into FP2, it felt like a lot of people still had issues with their GPS data. So it was just a mess. I couldn’t get up a lap in. We made some changes which seemed to be working well into sector one, sector two, but not much to say really.”
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