After making three consecutive Q3 appearances, Sergio Perez failed to make it four in a row on Friday evening at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver was eliminated in Q2 for the first time since the Qatar Grand Prix, following a strategy failure by the Milton Keynes-based team.
With the Las Vegas Street Circuit being completely new and having been resurfaced ahead of the event, the track has just been getting quicker and quicker every lap.
Charles Leclerc’s pole lap was a second faster than his leading time in Q1, proving just how much the circuit evolved.
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It meant that the track was at its fastest at the end of each part of qualifying, something led to to a flurry of quick times in the closing seconds.
This caught out Red Bull, who opted complete just the one run in Q2.
When drivers were setting quick laps at the end of the second part of qualifying, the Mexican driver was sitting in the pits.
Unsurprisingly, this saw Perez drop to P12 by the end of the session, just a place behind Lewis Hamilton who was also eliminated in Q2.
Perez openly admitted that Red Bull had been caught out by the new circuit, whilst he noted that he was even “lucky” to get out of Q1.
“That was basically our strategy from the beginning,” Perez admitted to Sky Sports F1, when asked about the one-lap Q2 strategy.
“It’s obviously a new track and it caught us out, unfortunately. It’s something we will discuss internally to understand what happened.
“We were already lucky in Q1, managed to get through. Plenty of things to analyse from that.”
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Due to a 10-place grid penalty for Carlos Sainz, Perez will actually start Saturday evening’s race in P11, with him certainly having a car which should be able to make progress.
As it’s a new venue, so much remains unknown ahead of the race, something the 33-year-old is more than aware of.
“It will be an interesting race, there are a lot of things that can happen,” added Checo. “We will see what we are able to make tomorrow.”