Christian Horner speaks out as Red Bull accused of ‘doing Sergio Perez dirty’
Christian Horner has explained the thought process behind Red Bull’s bizarre strategy call that left Sergio Perez eliminated during Q2 ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Perez had shown some promising pace during the early stages of qualifying, but after the penultimate set of laps in Q2 he was sitting down in P6 in what was a risky position.
Despite this, Red Bull opted not to send him out for another run and when the chequered flag dropped, he had tumbled down to 12th in the order, leading to an early elimination.
The 33-year-old was audibly confused with the decision not to go out again when he came back into the pit lane. Ultimately that cost him dearly, although he will be promoted to P11 on the grid for the race thanks to Carlos Sainz’s grid penalty.
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The decision to send Perez out for his final run earlier was explained by team principal Horner in his interview with Sky Sports F1 after the qualifying session.
He explained: “He went a little earlier. We only took three sets of soft tyres into qualifying. To try and avoid getting caught in traffic on the last lap, he did the lap a little earlier and was just a tenth short.”
Many fans took to social media to show their frustrations with Red Bull’s strategy. One X user stated: “Red Bull did Sergio Perez dirty” while another added: “Sergio Perez stitched up again…”
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Another fan questioned the thought process behind the strategy, asking: “What was Red Bull thinking Sergio Perez? Please tell me that wasn’t just to save his soft tyres for tomorrow!”
When asked about the strategy call and whether he was aware of the plan, Perez told Sky Sports F1: “We knew that was our strategy from the beginning.
“It’s a new track and it caught us out. We were already lacking in Q1 and plenty of things to discuss internally. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting race with plenty of things going to happen.”
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