Sergio Perez’s downward spiral continued on Saturday at the 2023 British Grand Prix, as the Mexican was eliminated from Q1.
It was another miserable qualifying session for the Red Bull driver, who’s now failed to make Q3 at five consecutive races in 2023.
To add to Checo’s woes, reigning World Champion Max Verstappen secured his fifth pole position in a row, to strengthen his superiority in the Red Bull garage and make Perez’s performance look all the more worse.
Perez once again just didn’t look comfortable in mixed conditions, as he failed to exploit the RB19’s full potential in the drying conditions.
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Perez found himself on the cusp of the bottom five as a red flag was flown with just over three minutes remaining in Q1, after Kevin Magnussen came to a halt.
Recognising the importance of improving his lap-time, Perez was fitted with fresh Soft tyres and sat at the end of the pit-lane, where he waited ten minutes for the green light.
As a result, he lost significant tyre temperature, which meant he failed to set a good enough lap-time on the drying circuit.
He ultimately could only manage P16, meaning he once again has a mountain to climb during the race should he want to finish on the podium.
“The red flag lasted longer than we expected initially, that didn’t help for the temperature of the tyre,” Perez said after his early elimination.
“And yeah, just a shame to lose out as we had a great Friday, the race pace was looking really good, starting from the back it’s going to be another race where we try and minimise the damage.”
Perez added: “I think in this conditions it’s where I struggle the most with the car.
“My issues with the car become more apparent in the changeable conditions, so I think it’s something as a group we need to get on top of and understand what we are able to do better, simple as that.”
Unsurprisingly, social media wasn’t kind to Perez after qualifying, with many having ridiculed the Red Bull driver for being eliminated prior to Q3 once again.
One F1 fan captioned an edited meme from popular cartoon ‘The Simpsons’, which included an image of the driver: “Perez after missing 5 Q3s in a row.”
Other fans stated that Checo “doesn’t deserve” a seat at the Milton Keynes-based team.
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“Bro doesn’t deserve redbull,” wrote @CharmishGoswami.
Another fan, @zynbynight said: “Need them to demote him to AlphaTauri I’m so serious.”
The idea of Perez being demoted to AlphaTauri was a bit of a theme amongst fans after qualifying, as @Jamie_XIV commented: “AlphaTauri loading.”