2021 Mexican GP : Post-qualifying reaction from Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez

Red Bull drivers Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen disappointed huge wave of Mexican fans after missing out to qualify in the front row. Mercedes took unexpected Pole and front row lockout at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez for tomorrow’s race.

Max Verstappen (P3)

“P3 isn’t so bad considering we were really struggling to get the tyres to work today, we were sliding around a lot. My first lap in Q3 wasn’t great, the grip was terrible so when I saw the gap to Mercedes, I thought that was fair enough.

We needed to find a better balance in the car so we tried to make a few changes to how our car was running and then I think the second lap of Q3 was looking okay. I don’t know what happened in front of me but I saw Checo and Yuki both go wide and I saw a lot of dust so I thought that a car had crashed.

I’ve been caught out by yellow flags here before so I slowed down, as a result I lost a lot of momentum and time. It’s a shame that we both aren’t locking out the front row tomorrow after being so competitive all weekend. Tomorrow is a new day and hopefully the race will be exciting, there’s a long run to the first corner so let’s see what happens.”

Sergio Perez (P4)

“The car was not the same as it was in FP3 after we had to change the rear wing, but we did couple of adjustments in the session and once we got on top of it, all of a sudden I found Yuki off his racing line ahead of me at turn 11, which hurt my final lap. He wasn’t a distraction it was that I was too close to him and it forced me to brake.

Once I did that I lost my downforce and I think I got a lot of dirty air, lost the car unfortunately and lost my lap. We didn’t have the pace across qualifying, but I think I could have improved a bit going into that final lap, I was up already on my previous lap and think I could have improved by a couple of tenths. We have to analyse as a Team to make sure tomorrow we have a good race car and are able to put pressure on the Mercedes ahead of us.

I think the launch we have tomorrow is more important than the grid position, there is a long race ahead and we will try to be there, I am optimistic and I hope all the fans enjoy it. The crowd have been amazing, they are giving me so much love and support. I just look forward to tomorrow now and hope I can celebrate with them on the podium, I will give my maximum.”

Christian Horner, Team Principal

“We still think we’ve got a great chance in this race. It is going to be very tight in the race tomorrow, we need to nail the start.

I think we got Tsunoda’d. Both drivers were up on their last lap. Max was up two-and-a-half tenths, I think Checo was just under two-tenths up. I don’t understand why he was just cruising around at that part of the circuit.

It’s disappointing because it affected both of the drivers because they’re both pretty annoyed. But we’re still second row of the grid and can have a great race from there.

[Mercedes] were very quick, very quick. I think we could see yesterday, their engine, they’ve addressed the issues that they had previously here. So they’ve obviously managed to address that.

I think we underperformed in Q3. But there’s still, it’s very, very tight. In the race tomorrow, again, it’s going to be really tight. They’ve got a good straightline speed here, which is going to be tough.”