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Sergio Perez on pole – at the 215th time of asking! It was only in the 1990s that anyone had even started 200 grands prix, let alone waited that long before their first pole (Riccardo Patrese became the first driver in history to reach the 200-race milestone in 1991).
It’s an incredible record, but sells Perez short – because he’s only done one season plus two events in a potential pole-setting car. None of the Saubers, McLarens, Force Indias or Racing Points he drove prior to getting his Red Bull break after decade-long build-up were of that calibre.
But it must be said that even last year in a Red Bull that was often the fastest car on the grid, he never looked close to being a potential polesitter. He qualified an average of 0.526% off team mate Max Verstappen. He’s always been a more impressive driver on Sundays than Saturdays. The race is when his feel for the tyres in combination with great racecraft really come into their own.
But here he was, Saturday evening on one of the most demanding tracks on the calendar, taking full advantage of Verstappen’s trouble with tyre prep, and into the bargain blind-siding the Ferrari drivers, to finally put himself at the head of the pack.
Team boss Christian Horner was in raptures: “So pleased for him…That lap was mighty. We could see it coming. The Ferraris had put down a competitive marker. To put in a lap like that here on the hardest, most dangerous circuit that we go to was an unbelievable performance. Phenomenal.
“He’s worked incredibly hard and I think this year’s car is more suited to his style – not quite as quirky as last year’s car. By his own admission Saturdays weren’t his strongest suite – he’s always come alive on race day. This will do his confidence a world of good.”
Verstappen was only fourth quickest, 0.261 seconds slower than the man who only once before had out-qualified him as a team mate (at Imola last year after Verstappen had made a crucial error). This time there was no Verstappen error, just a difficulty in keying himself into the fiddly preparations asked of the tyres here.
“My first Q3 run there was just no grip at all,” Verstappen said. “The car was just moving around all over the place. After that long delay [for Mick Schumacher’s crash] especially, you really need to build on your laps and having that as the starting point wasn’t ideal and I just couldn’t extract the maximum from the tyre. I did something different with my tyre prep and warm up in qualifying and it worked in Q1 and Q2, but maybe not in Q3.”
“It was all about risk and precision,” a delighted Perez assessed afterwards. “I could 2000 laps and I wouldn’t repeat that one! After the long delay it was tough keeping the focus. But in that time I just focused on doing the perfect lap. The amount of risk you have to take is extremely high.”
That’s the essence of the Jeddah Corniche circuit’s challenge, allowing the walls to be shaved. It’s perhaps not insignificant that by far the best qualifying performances of Perez’s Force India days came amid the similar demands of Baku, the venue of his only Red Bull victory to date (albeit after Verstappen retired). Skimming the concrete is something he does well.
There are only seven braking zones in this 27-corner lap. With the super-low downforce settings used by everyone, those zones are especially tricky – and where nearly all the time is to be found. The rest of it is just flat-out, fast-corner precision. When we look at a comparison of the Perez and Verstappen laps we can see the following:
Perez vs Verstappen
In the first half of the lap – up to the hairpin of Turn 13 – Perez is generally earlier on the brakes but earlier on the gas than Verstappen. That earlier braking allows Perez to get more turn onto the car through weight transfer, the car rotating around its axis earlier, permitting that early throttle application.
It’s in the traction zones that Perez is doing the damage, where his greater confidence in the tyres and his commitment to that feeling is paying him back. He’s combining the braking with getting the car lined up to accept the throttle earlier. With the front tyres less heavily loaded into the corner, his minimum speed is higher at the apex and so there’s less accelerating to do, which makes it easier on the rear tyres. He seems to be fighting with the car less than Verstappen.
But in the latter half of the lap from Turn 13 onwards, his gains to Verstappen come also in the braking zone, perhaps as the repeated greater acceleration demands in the first sector have taken Verstappen’s rear tyres past their peak temperature while Perez’s are still in great condition. Into Turns 22, 24 and 27 Perez is able to be later on the brakes and better in traction, with Verstappen having to short-shift to limit wheelspin while Perez is able to let the engine sing for longer, having not broken traction.
Only in the flat-out kinks of Turns 14-16 does Verstappen pull some time back, as he’s clearly skimming just that bit closer to the walls. But generally, being better keyed-in to the tyres in the first half of the lap seems to have given Perez a tyre advantage in the latter part.
Perez vs Leclerc
When we look at the Red Bull’s comparison to the Ferrari, we see – just as in Bahrain – that despite the similar laptimes, they are derived in different ways. The Red Bull is again much faster at the end of the straights. It seems to be running less wing than the Ferrari but also contributing to that end-of-straight speed is the Red Bull’s apparent immunity to porpoising. The car can run super-low without triggering the bouncing motion which in smashing the Ferrari’s skid bocks into the track does inevitably cost some straightline speed.
From Turn 4 all the way to Turn 13, the Ferrari’s superior acceleration despite its higher downforce pulls Leclerc ahead on elapsed time. The Ferrari gets into seventh gear well before T13 while the Red Bull remains in sixth, suggesting, as in Bahrain, that it’s shorter-geared. The Red Bull is then faster into and through the hairpin of Turn 13 but again the Ferrari gains speed better on exit and through the flat-out kinks which follow and Leclerc is well ahead right up to Turn 24. It’s in the last two corners of 24 and 27, relatively low-speed turns both, that Perez claws it all back and more.
“Checo’s lap must have been amazing,” said a visibly crestfallen Leclerc, “because mine was good. I thought I’d done enough.”
Not on this day.
