For the third consecutive race in a row, Sergio Perez failed to make the Q3 cut in qualifying, the Red Bull charger and his team "getting it wrong" in Saturday's challenging wet session in Montreal.
Perez concluded his day P12, mainly as a result of opting – like Ferrari's Charles Leclerc – to put in banker lap on the intermediates at the start of Q2, which led to a belated switch to the soft slick tyre and to his subsequent shortfall.
"It was basically half a lap too late and the track position was really poor with the Alfa Romeo ahead," commented the Mexican.
"And once the tyres were up to temperature on the slick, it started raining harder, so we decided to box. Then, when we went onto the inter, it was all a bit too late.
"That was always the plan – to do one lap and come back in for the slick tyre."
Perez made clear that the botched strategy was a collective call.
"We took the decision together and we got it wrong. But it was literally a gamble, the track," he added. We were missing four or five-tenths, and then it was all down to the track.
"There was certainly much more potential in the car to get the lap earlier, but we just didn’t get the lap when we could have."
Perez acknowledged that launching his race from outside the top ten for a third consecutive race weekend was not satisfactory.
"I’m definitely not feeling great, I’m not going through a great moment," he admitted.
"But we’ve come back before and the race is a new opportunity to, hopefully, get back to very strong points.
"What happened in qualifying was just a mess really. Being half a lap earlier here and there, the picture would have looked a lot different and we would have had a good day.
"We just have to keep our heads down and it will come to us. We will try hard to get through the field. It won’t be an easy ask, but we will try everything."
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