Perez blames 'brake balance' issue for Q1 qualifying blunder

After a solid start to the Australian Grand Prix weekend on Friday, Saturday proved to be something of a horror show for Red Bull's Sergio Perez.

He struggled with the balance of the car in final practice and locked up multiple times, with several run-offs onto the grass and gravel as a result.

It was hoped that the team would be able to use the intermission before qualifying to check over the car and make any necessary changes, but that proved not to be the case.

When he went out in Q1, Perez was immediately complaining about the handling of the car - and then locked up and run off onto the wet gravel at turn 3.

When the car dug itself in and refused to get underway the session was red flagged while marshals rushed in - meaning Perez could only climb out of the cockpit and watch as it was loaded onto a recovery vehicle.

“He’s had a horrible day today,” commented Red Bull principal Christian Horner who confirmed the team would check the car after Perez “pushed quite hard and unfortunately ran into the gravel”.

• Read also: Verstappen on pole in Australia ahead of Russell and Hamilton

“We had a bit of a technical issue from FP3 and we thought we fixed it but we obviously didn’t,” Perez himself confirmed later, when he spoke to the media afterwards.

“It’s something that is moving the brake balance quite far forward under braking," he explained. “It was very difficult to do anything out there," he added. "I became a passenger as soon as I touched the brake.

"I just hope that we are able to fix it as a team tomorrow and be able to race and minimise the damage," adding that for obvious reasons he “didn’t want to go too much into detail” about the problem.

“I trust totally my team that we will be able to overcome this problem and be able to have a strong race pace,” he insisted.

Failing to set a lap time in Q1 means that Perez will start tomorrow's race from the last row of the grid. And while he's won from there in the past, Albert Park is not a track where you want to have that task facing you.

Traffic and congestion has already been a major headache for drivers this weekend, and it's likely to be the same in the race as well.

“It’s going to be difficult to overtake," Perez admitted. “The margin in qualie shows how close everyone is

“If we’re not able to put it together every single Saturday and Sunday, the competition is really strong.”

After winning the last race in Saudi Arabia, Perez is currently in second place in the drivers standings with team mate Max Verstappen a single point further ahead.

Verstappen salvaged second in Jeddah despite starting from P15 on the grid after suffering a driveshaft failure in the second round of qualifying.

Verstappen insisted he had no concerns about the reliability of the RB19 despite that failure and now Perez' problems on Saturday in Melbourne.

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