F1 News: Red Bull Chief Confirms Sergio Perez Meeting After Bizarre Qatar Sprint Start - 'Caught Napping'

Saajan Jogia | Nov 30, 2024

Oracle Red Bull Racing driver Sergio Perez talks to media at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. / Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Sergio Perez might soon be having discussions with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner after his late reaction to the green light during his Qatar Grand Prix Sprint race pit lane start. The delay was capitalized by Williams' Franco Colapinto, who overtook Perez on the pitlane. Reacting to the incident, Horner said he needed to have a chat with him as it looked like he was "caught napping."

Perez and Colapinto started from the pit lane since their teams made changes to the cars in parc ferme. But the race start was a moment that added to the Mexican driver's bad weekend after qualifying in P16 for the Sprint race.

When the light turned green, Perez hesitated for over a second before moving, allowing Colapinto to seize the opportunity and overtake him instantly. Speaking on the rather embarrassing event for Red Bull, Horner said on F1TV, as reported by Motorsportweek.com:

“I need to have a chat with him about it because it just looked like he was caught napping a little bit and obviously Colapinto got the jump on him."

Following Perez's disappointing Sprint qualifying, Red Bull opted to use the race as an opportunity for testing and collecting valuable data in clean air. This information will be compared with data gathered in the upcoming session, allowing the team to analyze and draw key conclusions about the car's performance. Taking full advantage of the session, Red Bull also pitted Perez for a front-wing swap later during the race. Speaking on the data-gathering exercise, Horner added:

“We managed to get some useful data from Checo in that race.

“We managed to change the nose as well so we got some good feedback that hopefully we can use for this afternoon.

“Basically, on a day that we weren’t going to score points with him, it was better to get as much knowledge as we could.

“So that’s what we’ve done, we’ve got some data now to look at between now and the next session, so hopefully we can make good use of it.”

Perez explained that the goal was to test the car in clean air, meaning he aimed to stay behind the pack with a significant gap. This strategy could explain why he allowed Colapinto to overtake him in the pit lane. He said:

“The main objective of today was to be as further back as possible, to have as much clean air as possible.

“That was the objective.

“I think we managed to understand the car with the changes we’ve done. I think there is some room to improve what we have to do going forwards.

“We have to try and bring a little bit more balance to the car.”