Red Bull's Sergio Perez says he plans to fight for his second victory of the season in tomorrow's Belgian Grand Prix, despite missing out on pole position for the race in today's qualifying session.
Perez had pipped his team mate Max verstappen to the top spot in final practice earlier in the day, but when it came to qualifying it was all about Max who ended up six tenths quicker than anyone else in Q3.
But Verstappen still won't line up in P1 for tomorrow's race, as power unit penalties mean he's been bumped down to 15th place leaving the front row shared by Perez and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz.
Sainz managed to take the top spot despite a scruffy final flying lap, with Perez unable to find the extra speed he needed to take the effective pole position away from the Spaniard.
“It was a good but not fantastic qualifying," Perez said. "My first lap in Q3 wasn’t great. Then that session was slightly disturbed due to other issues, like a little damage to my floor,
"But being P2 for the race tomorrow is still decent," he acknowledged. "We improved very well from yesterday considering we lost a lot of track time in FP2 and I think there is still room to improve in the race.
"Being on pole doesn’t benefit you too much here," he suggested. "Being close to Carlos in Eau Rogue can get me the lead, so I will try to do that. It’s important we race our own race.
"We can fight for the win from the front row tomorrow - we expect to go for it," he added. "It’s about getting a good start, a clean lap one and going from there."
As well as facing off with Sainz, Perez will also have to be aware of Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell all starting immediately behind him.
And later in the race there will be the threat of Verstappen and Charles Leclerc fighting their back to the front, with a podium the very least expected by Verstappen given his dominating pace in today's sessions.
"It was an unbelievable qualifying from Max today, the lap time was so good he didn’t need to do the second run," said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. "He has been absolutely on fire this weekend.
It’s a hard fight from P15 and there are always risks associated with that but we are in for a fantastic race tomorrow with Max and Charles fighting their way through the field.
"Checo also had a brilliant qualifying. He is perfectly poised to take on Carlos at the front," he added, recalling previous years when the slipstream up Eau Rouge has proved decisive in the opening laps when it came to the lead.
"We discussed ahead of time and agreed that tactically P2 may be a better place to start," Horner said. "Yes, P1 is traditionally the best place to start; but here it's all to play for.
"There is going to be a lot to keep on top of tomorrow!"
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