Sergio Perez conceded the driver who many suspect Red Bull favour to replace him in the future produced a “tremendous lap” by out-qualifying him on Saturday.
Daniel Ricciardo took fourth on the grid for the Mexican Grand Prix, improving his AlphaTauri team’s best qualifying performance of the season so far by four places.He also split the Red Bull drivers. A day after Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said he wanted to see Perez qualifying in the top two rows, Ricciardo edged him out by just four-hundredths of a second.
The outcome was a blow for Perez, whose team have already clinched the constructors’ championship this year, while AlphaTauri for now languish at the bottom of the table.
“Well, Daniel did a tremendous lap,” he admitted. “And I don’t think it’s just Daniel that wants my seat.
“I think there is a lot of other drivers that want to be in that seat. And it’s great, if it’s what they deserve, then I’m happy for them.”
But while Ricciardo shone in his second race back from injury – which will be only his fourth grand prix start this year – Perez has also made gains in recent races. He left the Circuit of the Americas encouraged by a change in set-up direction which he believes he could have taken further had he been able to make further alterations after the first practice session.
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“We already made progress in Austin, we are making progress here,” he said. “So I think we are in a good level with the car.”
Perez was only 0.16 seconds slower than Max Verstappen in yesterday’s qualifying session, which is considerably closer than he has been on many other occasions this year. He was closer in Austin, though aided by his team mate’s track limits breach.
He believes he could have been closer at his home track had he saved an extra new set of soft tyres for Q3 as his team mate did. Instead he had to do his first run on older tyres.
“Obviously this track is really difficult,” Perez admitted afterwards. “Every single set of tyres that I had today performed differently. So it is a track that is really difficult to get the most out of.”
“Especially through qualifying it ramped up a bit, the temperature, which could change,” he added. “Three or four degrees of track temp in any other place you don’t feel them. But in Mexico it changes the balance quite a lot because you are so much on the edge and always sliding around.”
He has finished on the podium at home on both of his previous appearances for Red Bull and aims to continue that run today. “I will try to pull something special for tomorrow and see what happens,” he said.
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2023 Mexican Grand Prix
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- Ferrari reaping the benefits of having F1’s most closely-matched team mates
- Norris had “no chance” to beat Verstappen in Mexico even without Q1 exit
- Transcript: How Ricciardo’s race went awry soon after he was told to “bring it home”
- Mercedes see “very encouraging signs” from Austin floor update
