Sergio Perez was left to rue his missed pole position during the US GP qualification, saying he was very close to sitting at the front.
Perez crossed the line as third-fastest overall, but he was on provisional pole a few minutes before that. However, his teammate Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton clinched pole and second place respectively.
The Mexican was just 0.015 seconds behind Hamilton, and it was a day of frustration for Red Bull and for his fans. Perez was also left to rue his missed pole position, and explained the close-but-no-cigar series of events.
“I was just into my own thing – I knew there was some time to find so I felt like this could be my day, you know?” Perez told the official F1 website.
“Unfortunately I didn’t put it all together there in the end where it counted. Yes, it was pretty tense but I think I knew it was all down to the final chance: how much I was able to find.
“I was on a pretty good lap; I think in Turn 1 itself I was able to find a couple of tenths. I just couldn’t keep it up completely throughout the lap and didn’t get 100% out of the car today.
“I think Max did a fantastic job, same as Lewis, so we finished where we deserved today, I think. Still, I think we are in a good position.
“I think it’s going to be a pretty long race tomorrow so not too concerned about the qualifying; I think there is plenty of opportunities for tomorrow.”
Confidence booster
Checo said that he took a lot of confidence from his stellar practice session results, and learned that he had a lot of pace for qualifying.
“Not just from today, you know, starting the weekend, it shows how hard we are working behind the scenes to try to get on top of the car together with my engineers,” he continued.
“We haven’t had the year that we were hoping (for); the adaptation has been longer than expected but we’ve been working flat out and yes, we can see the progress and yes, I can just expect to keep getting better.”
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