The start of the action in the Qatar Grand Prix put greater pressure on the already questioned Sergio Perez. Czech He failed to pass SQ1 in qualifying for the Sprint race and, after finishing 16th on the grid, it was decided to modify the set-up of his car, which forced him to start from the pit lane with Franco Colapinto behind. If the Mexican was missing something, it was making a mistake at the beginning of the start from the pit road and being immediately overtaken by the Argentine.
This curious situation only rubbed the debate around its continuity, which seems increasingly complex at the same time as Yuki Tsunoda claim your chance, Liam Lawson attacks him on the track, and the Argentine Colapinto He dreams of having his chance. The head of Red Bull, Christian Hornerdid not hide his annoyance when asked about the failure of Czech: “I have to have a chat with him about it because it seems like they found him a little asleep and obviously Colapinto went ahead. “We managed to get some useful data from Checo in that race,” he said into the microphones of F1TV. The leader of the energy drink team also expressed his disagreement with the issue in another note: “I need to talk to him about it. It seemed like he miscalculated, but when the light goes off you’re supposed to start“, he pointed out before Sky Sportsas reproduced by the portal Motorsport.
Although the Red Bulls did not have a good performance, and even the champion Max Verstappen He arrived eighth, Pérez added another mistake to a season that has already been complicated, to the point that the energizer team was far from the Constructors’ Championship fight. “I wanted to open a gap with the people in front to ride in clean air for as long as possible and then we stayed there for almost five minutes, so I didn’t have any temperature in the tires. Today it was important to go with clean air to find the car, see where we are. We have changed a lot, in the end we have this disconnection from the balance that is costing us a lot. The main objective today was to go with as much clean air as possible, so when I left I was going slow. And Franco was behind. I had very cold tires because I was there for almost five minutes at the traffic light. The important thing for us today was to find balance in clean air for as long as possible,” the South American explained before the cameras. ESPN after what happened.
His rival, Colapinto, had seemed surprised by the failure at the start. “He fell asleep…”he said between laughs. “No, nothing… Checo was, I don’t know, it seems he wasn’t looking at the traffic light or something. Maybe he was trying to get first. Sometimes the first one takes a little while. I was already ready to leave, my tires were hot and he stayed waiting a few minutes before. I had more grip and at least we recovered a place there,” he added after the race.
The 34-year-old defended himself days ago when he was asked about his future, but the truth is that the pressure to remove him from his seat is growing hour by hour, to the point that even Tsunoda demanded to have the chance at Red Bull. However, nothing seems to be defined and even the star advisor, Helmut Markoacknowledged that in two weeks there will be news: “On Monday after Abu Dhabi there will be a meeting and decisions will be made there”he said in Austrian Small newspaperpointing out Monday, December 9, as the key date.
During the press conference in Qatar, Williams boss James Vowles He accepted that negotiations are open for Colapinto: “There is interest. But more than that I can’t really say right now, I think that these teams have to understand the seats they have and do not have for next year before we can determine where it goes, if it goes there.” At the same time, the Argentine’s manager, María Catarineu, said before the Qatar sprint that “the continuity of her management is not ruled out”, but stated: “When we have an answer we will give it. There are still two weekends left and at the end of the season I hope to be able to give an answer that everyone likes”.
