Perez blames engine problem for Q2 elimination at Singapore Grand Prix

Sergio Perez says an engine problem caused his early elimination from qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix.

Perez said the team don’t understand what went wrong with their cars in qualifying. “Not at the moment. We have some ideas of what’s going on, but nothing straight away.”

Perez ended the session two tenths of a second away from reaching Q3 after he failed to improve on his final lap when he spun at turn three. Afterwards he said he encountered a problem with his power unit during that run.

“I’m really disappointed because we haven’t been able to make any progress. The fact that I had an issue with the engine on my final attempt for Q3 meant that I couldn’t make it into Q3, unfortunately.”

He described the balance problems he suffered throughout the weekend so far. “Every corner is quite different, we were playing around with the tools quite a lot.”

On a tight and twisty track like Singapore, Perez doesn’t expect Red Bull to make their usual progress through the pack. “I think the race pace was very strong on Friday, but given where we’re starting it’s going to be difficult,” he said.

“But hopefully it’s just a one-off and we can move on from here.”

Team principal Christian Horner confirmed the team removed some of the updates it brought for this race weekend ahead of qualifying. “We tried a new aero part in practice, but what we went into qualifying with is tried and tested,” he said. “For whatever reason, the car just hasn’t responded at this circuit.

“There is a lot to do but we won’t give up on anything. Starting outside of the top 10 at a track that is notoriously hard to overtake on is going to be tough but we certainly haven’t written this weekend off.”

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