F1 driver at risk of losing job has exposed Sergio Perez and left Red Bull star red-faced
His season has not been going well, but one struggling F1 driver has managed to show up Red Bull ace Sergio Perez
Sergio Perez has been exposed by Logan Sargeant outqualifying the Red Bull star for the sixth time of his career and second in the space of a few weeks. The Mexican remains in the top five of the F1 standings but his performances at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve left plenty to be desired.
Perez, 34, finished in 16th in qualifying before going on to record a DNF in the Grand Prix on Sunday. He was also hit with a three-place grid penalty ahead of the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix for being adjudged to have returned to the pits with a "significantly damaged" car.
He spun off on the 53rd lap, damaging his rear wing before he had to humiliatingly circle back to the pit lane. If that was not bad enough, Perez finished behind under threat Williams driver Sargeant in qualifying - something that has never happened to Max Verstappen.
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Soon after the GP, a staggering statistic about the misfiring American stated he has been out-qualified by his team-mate Alex Albon in all 30 GPs he has taken part in. Nevertheless, if he was licking his wounds about that troubling statistic, Sargeant can calm himself down with the fact that he has managed to outqualify Perez on six occasions during his career.
This statistic blew F1 fans away and didn't make for good reading for Perez and Red Bull especially considering Sargeant's best performance in qualifying this season was this weekend when he started in 13th - and he's never qualified any higher than seventh in his F1 career. The stat further showcases the inconsistency of Perez, who hasn't now been on the podium since the Chinese GP in April despite having the best car on the grid.
The fact Sargent's time with Williams is currently under threat only makes it a tougher pill for Perez to swallow. Sargeant, however, also recorded a DNF at the GP in Montreal as he spun out at the exit of turn four and smashed into a wall on Lap 25, forcing the safety car to come out and end his afternoon.
Nevertheless, it's arguable that he still had a better weekend than Perez. It was the second week in a row that Perez span out and failed to finish the GP.
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With the three-place grid penalty he has picked up, it will be even harder for him to make up for his mistakes at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on June 23. When asked about what happened, Perez said: "I made a mistake going into Turn 6.
"I just touched the wet patch and once you do that it’s really game over, and unfortunately that’s what happened. Very tough weekend, but I think there is a long season ahead and we will be back to our form that we had earlier.”
Meanwhile, Sargeant's failure to finish the race also pushed him closer to racing oblivion. His future has been uncertain for many months, as James Vowles of Williams recently hinted they may look to change drivers to become more competitive.
After the race, Sargeant said: "The track conditions were difficult, especially at the start of the race with the amount of standing water. There was quite a lot of aquaplaning going on, so I was trying to manage that.
"I made too many mistakes today and two punishing ones. I lost the rear extremely quickly and couldn’t save it.
"I’m disappointed with myself after feeling like I was driving great this weekend. We had good pace when we were able to put together clean laps. We’ll move on and look ahead."
