Sergio Perez admits he found the composure Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc showed in the Saudi Arabian GP ‘unfortunate’ for the Red Bull star’s efforts in Jeddah last week.
The 34-year-old has started his 2024 season with back-to-back second-place results at the Bahrain GP and Saudi Arabian GP. But Perez wonders what more may have been possible at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit if he out-qualified Leclerc after toiling to pass the Ferrari pilot.
Just 0.016 seconds split Leclerc to Perez in the 26-year-old’s favour for a starting spot next to Max Verstappen. Perez recorded a personal best lap time of 1:27.807 in Q3, which Leclerc eclipsed with a 1:27.791 on his final run. Although it only took Perez four laps to get in front.
Charles Leclerc beat Sergio Perez by 0.016 seconds in qualifying for the Saudi Arabian GP
DRS made overtaking Leclerc a piece of cake as Perez just breezed past the Monegasque on the straight. The Ferrari driver also hesitated to defend the position. But the early safety car after Lance Stroll crashed kept Leclerc and Perez together once they both stopped on Lap 7.
The stewards giving Perez a five-second time penalty for an unsafe release offered Leclerc extra incentive. But it, ultimately, proved irrelevant as Perez still held a 4.996-second margin over the Scuderia star at the finish. Yet he finished 13.643s behind race-winner, Verstappen.
Back-to-back second places in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are enough for Perez to sit second in the early drivers’ standings. But the Mexican trails his Red Bull teammate, Verstappen, by 15 points. Just a point split the drivers after Perez won the 2023 Saudi Arabian GP from pole.
Sergio Perez wonders what more was possible for the Red Bull driver in Jeddah
So, had he started the 2024 race on the front row instead of Leclerc, Perez wonders what he could have achieved. The Guadalajara native also rues having to run from Lap 7 to 50 on one set of hard compound Pirelli tyres. Valtteri Bottas was the only driver to make two pit stops.
“We definitely made some good progress,” he said, via quotes by Motorsport Week. “I think it was a shame that we just qualified out of the front row because we had a great start.
“Unfortunately, Charles really kept it together and we couldn’t get through. It was a nice fight then later on. And it was quite a compromised race, I’ll say, with the safety car there so early. It was a very long stint on the hard.”
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