Sergio Perez has revealed that an issue with his brakes was the reason behind his shocking elimination from Q1 during the qualifying session of his of home Mexico City Grand Prix on Saturday, Afrosport reports.
Perez struggled for pace throughout qualifying and was only good enough to end up in 18th, continuing his poor form form having not challenged for the podium since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in September where he suffered an unfortunate DNF.
He has also not finished on the podium since the Chinese Grand Prix in April.
Speaking after his Q1 elimination, Perez said: “Yeah I’m been struggling quite a bit with braking.
“Every time I try to brake and attack the braking, I just put too much energy through the tires, and that makes it very tricky for me to stop the car.
“It’s been there for the last three races, where I cannot stop the car. I’m having to modulate quite a lot my braking, and that’s something we can see in the data, but we are not able to fix it at the moment.”
He also complained about the handling of his RB20 in low-speed corners adding: “It’s mainly on a straight line, the issue that we’re facing. It’s mainly on a straight line. I cannot stop the car.
“I just slide too much. Given that it’s all surface sensitivity here, it makes it a lot harder.”
Not the qualifying result Checo was hoping for in front of his home crowd 😔#F1 #MexicoGP pic.twitter.com/BD6H7J9ER6
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 26, 2024
Sergio Perez has conceded that the brake issue might hinder him from getting a strong result in front of the Mexican home crowd.
“It’s going to be harder, because it’s also present there in the long runs. I will try everything, I will try and see what we are able to do with the team, and see what solutions we are able to find,” he explained.
“It’s obviously very disappointing. It’s a grand prix I want to do really well, it’s this one. Unfortunately it’s been really difficult and tricky, this event.”
The former Force India/Racing Point driver is eighth in drivers’ championship, 204 points behind his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen.
