Perez ‘couldn’t recover’ lost ground after K-Mag blockage

07/30/2022 05:00 PM

Sergio Perez has said being slowed down by coming up behind Kevin Magnussen in Q2 left him with too much ground to make up towards the end of his lap.

The Red Bull driver had already been under pressure in the session after his first attempt was struck off for supposedly breaching track limits at Turn 5.

This lap was later reinstated by the stewards however, in the first decision reversal of its kind this season, but Perez’s time was still around eight tenths behind the leaders.

He had one lap to make his way through to Q3 at that point, but he could not improve and lost out, eventually qualifying P11 for Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

Perez owes this to having to take evasive action behind the Haas of Kevin Magnussen heading down to Turn 2, having to take a compromising line which hampered his potential for the rest of the lap.

Feel like pure sh*t, just want this Sergio Perez back #F1pic.twitter.com/4ITfWUh57h

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This leaves him wedged in the midfield battle to start with around the Hungaroring, but he hopes to find his way into the upper points-paying positions on Sunday.

Perez told Sky F1 after qualifying: “It was very unfortunate because I lost a few tenths, I missed out on Q3 by a few hundredths and then going into Turn 2 I lost a lot with Kevin, a few tenths.

“I just had to go very deep on the corner, and I couldn’t recover afterwards.”

When asked if he would take matters up with the stewards, he added: “It will not change anything for me. Hopefully we are able to come back strong tomorrow.”

Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen did not fare much better in qualifying either, with a power unit issue limiting his performance in Q3 and leaving him down in P10.

This leaves the team with plenty of work to do to recover the deficit to Ferrari on Sunday, with title rivals Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc starting second and third on the grid respectively.

George Russell will start from pole for the first time in his Formula 1 career, after the Mercedes driver seemingly came from nowhere to trump both Ferrari drivers in Q3.

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