F1 | Sakhir GP | Perez: "I'm Happy With Qualifying Today"
Racing Point's Sergio Perez with an impressive P5 on the grid for Formula 1's first-ever Sakhir GP reflects on his qualifying performance.
FP3 was a valuable session in learning the sub-one-minute lap circuit while also improving the set-up of the RP20, due to the unique challenge of the very short Bahrain Outer Track in which the driver took P8 with a 54.678.
View this post on Instagram
In qualifying, traffic was expected to be a key factor, but the team was able to get both drivers out in clean air, enabling them to set good early lap times in the fight to make Q2. Perez would initially tak the top spot with a 54.267 lap time, narrowly ahead of his team mate by three-tenths of a second.
View this post on Instagram
Major track improvement meant that lap times started to drop, but Perez was able to stay in the garage and maintain a set of soft tyres. To ensure that he entered in Q2.
Checo's lap time of 53.787 was an outstanding performance that sent him to P2 and Q3 comfortably.
In Q3, the Mexican picked up where he left off and had the advantage of two sets of fresh Soft tyres, lapping first in 53.798 to go P4. On his second run, he improved again to lap in 53.790 on a new set of Softs and take P5 on the grid.
Post-qualifying, Perez states, "I’m happy with qualifying today; I think it was a strong result. I don’t think P4 was possible because it was a good lap from Charles [Leclerc] and it would have been difficult to match that.It’s not been an easy challenge finding the perfect set-up for the car at such a different and challenging track, but I think we found a rhythm in qualifying and that was a big positive."
View this post on Instagram
To add, "We made good choices in qualifying by running just the one set of softs in Q1 and saving two sets for Q3 because that helped us get P5 on the grid. Overtaking might be a challenge here, we’ll find out tomorrow, but the strategy will be very important because even in qualifying we could see that tyre degradation was a factor. The key could be making the soft tyre last longer in the first stint and, hopefully, that will open up some opportunities through strategy. I think we’re capable of making that work and the race could come to us, but we need to focus on putting everything together until the final lap and making sure we score good points.”
With being in the Top 10 and happy with the balance of the car. Points are the goal in tomorrow's Sakhir Grand Prix
