Red Bull boss Christian Horner has claimed Sergio Perez was “caught napping” when he was slow in reacting to the lights in Formula 1‘s Qatar Grand Prix Sprint Race.
Perez and Williams’ Franco Colapinto began the truncated encounter in the pit lane as their respective teams chose to make changes to their cars outside parc ferme.
But while the Mexican lined up ahead at the pit exit, Colapinto got past when Perez didn’t respond to the light turning green to signal that he could head onto the track.
“I need to have a chat with him about it because it just looked like he was caught napping a little bit and obviously Colapinto got the jump on him,” Horner told F1 TV.
Perez being eliminated in the opening stage of Sprint Qualifying prompted Red Bull to withdraw his car from the starting grid and treat the race like a practice session.
Red Bull also opted to pit Perez in the closing stages to replace his front wing, ensuring he came home last as team-mate Max Verstappen picked up a point in eighth.
“We managed to get some useful data from Checo in that race,” Horner added.
“We managed to change the nose as well so we got some good feedback that hopefully we can use for this afternoon.”
He added: “Basically, on a day that we weren’t going to score points with him, it was better to get as much knowledge as we could.
“So that’s what we’ve done, we’ve got some data now to look at between now and the next session, so hopefully we can make good use of it.”
Perez avoided dirty air to collect data
Perez concurred with Horner’s assessment as he explained how his attention was fixated on ensuring that he got into clear air in order to acquire more accurate data.
“The main objective of today was to be as further back as possible, to have as much clean air as possible,” he said. “That was the objective.
“I think we managed to understand the car with the changes we’ve done. I think there is some room to improve what we have to do going forwards.
“We have to try and bring a little bit more balance to the car.”
READ MORE – F1 2024 Qatar Grand Prix – Sprint Race Results
