Perez has now failed to reach Q3 in half of all races this year

Red Bull are running away with the championship yet Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin have all made more Q3 appearances than them this year.

Of Red Bull’s two drivers, Sergio Perez is clearly the one coming up short in qualifying. Out of the eight races so far this year, Perez has failed to reach Q3 in half of them.

He missed the cut for the final 10 for the third weekend in a row in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix yesterday. Team mate Max Verstappen has only missed Q3 once, at the second round of the season, when his driveshaft broke during Q2.

Perez missed Q3 for the first time in Australia two races later, where he struggled throughout final practice with a braking problem. He continued to suffer with it in qualifying and skidded into a gravel trap at turn three on his first flying lap, ending his session. That was the first of five races during which he’s only reached Q3 once – his run to pole position in Miami.

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Statistics: Q1, Q2 and Q3 appearances in 2023 so far

Tap each layer to compare eliminations and appearances by team mates.

Q1 eliminations

At the opposite end of the grid, the situation at Williams is in many ways the reverse of Red Bull. They have the most Q1 eliminations of any team, with nine, yet Alexander Albon has avoided a first-round exit on all but two occasions.

The only team which has avoided a Q1 elimination at every round so far this year is Mercedes. Charles Leclerc’s handling problem in Spain saw him drop out in 19th place two weeks ago, and Lance Stroll narrowly missed the cut for Q2 in Miami, accounting for the sole Q1 exits for Ferrari and Aston Martin respectively.

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Q2 eliminations

Alfa Romeo have fallen more often in Q2 than any other team. All of their nine rivals have made it into Q3 more than once, indicating the competitiveness of the midfield – not long ago some teams went entire seasons struggling to escape Q1 let alone Q2.

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Q3 appearances

Ferrari’s strength in terms of one-lap pace has seen them reach Q3 more often than any other team so far this year. Due to Perez’s struggles, Mercedes and Aston Martin have also made more appearances in Q3 than Red Bull.

McLaren is another team which tends to perform better in qualifying than the race. It got both cars into Q3 this weekend, as it did in Spain, but failed to score two weeks ago.

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Team mate battles

Albon is the only driver who has kept a clean sheet against his team mate so far this year, out-qualifying Logan Sargeant at every round.

Qualifying scores
Alexander Albon	8 – 0	Logan Sargeant
Lando Norris	7 – 1	Oscar Piastri
Lance Stroll	1 – 7	Fernando Alonso
Kevin Magnussen	2 – 6	Nico Hulkenberg
Nyck de Vries	2 – 6	Yuki Tsunoda
Max Verstappen	5 – 1	Sergio Perez
Esteban Ocon	5 – 3	Pierre Gasly
Valtteri Bottas	5 – 3	Zhou Guanyu
Charles Leclerc	4 – 4	Carlos Sainz Jnr
Lewis Hamilton	4 – 4	George Russell

Methodology: Whichever team’s driver reached the later stage or set the faster lap time is judged the winner, unless either was unable to set a time due to a technical fault. Data refers to qualifying for grand prix sessions and not sprint races

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