09/07/2023
NEWS STORY
Red Bull's Lord High Executioner, Helmut Marko warns Sergio Pere to "get a grip" as Mexican fails to make it into Q3 for the fifth successive race.
While a bravura performance last weekend saw Perez join his teammate on the podium, there is no denying that he hardly made things easy for himself.
On the Friday he had three times deleted in qualifying and as a result failed to make it out of Q2.
While this in itself was bad, the fact is that it was the fourth successive race weekend when, for one reason or another, Perez failed to join his teammate at the right end of the grid.
Sadly, Silverstone saw little improvement, as the Mexican starts from 16th after failing to make it out of Q1.
"Today was disappointing," he admitted. The red flag lasted a lot longer than we initially thought it would so we lost some heat on the tyres and couldn't get enough temperature back into them.
"We also struggled with the weather," he added. "The changing conditions made things a lot trickier, so we ended up having a poor qualifying.
"We need to look forward to tomorrow," he insisted, "and just aim to get any many points as possible. It's going to be difficult to come through the field but we will try our very best."
That didn't wash with Marko.
"Perez needs to get a grip on his qualifications," he told Sky Sports. "Usually, he drives good races, and he's now lucky again as you can easily catch up here.
"It has always been a weakness of his," he added. "It happens too often and he has to work on that. We're also going to work on it, because if one driver is in front and the other 16th, something isn't right."
With Nyck de Vries' on notice, the Dutchman looking set to be dropped over the summer break, Marko was asked if Perez's seat is in danger.
"He is second in the standings and delivers good races, which distinguishes him from Nyck de Vries," he said. "At the moment there is no need to take action.
"Also, there is also no one available to replace him," he added.
Referring to the qualifying session, he said: "It was tough conditions and it was decisions that had to be made in seconds... at what point do you go out on track? It was difficult for Max as well and in those moments when we thought we had enough, it turned out not to be the case.
"In Q3 and we thought the first run would be enough for pole. Luckily we did a second run, but in these constantly changing conditions it was not easy to get the tyres up to temperature. You don't want to take too much risk, but you still want to push the limit. It was a tricky challenge."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Silverstone here.