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Miami the “worst weekend” until F1 pole

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Perez took pole in his first Q3 race as teammate Max Verstappen made a mistake and gave up his lap time, with Perez ahead of Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso and Ferrari Driver Carlos Sainz.

Leclerc then crashed in the second round, bringing out the red flag to end the race without anyone gaining a second lap on the track, locking Perez on pole.

The result came as a surprise to the Mexican, who until then had struggled to compare himself with his team-mate and the Ferrari team.

In Q1 Perez finished third 0.350 seconds behind Verstappen, and in Q2 Perez fell half a second behind Verstappen to fifth. He was also half a second behind the Dutchman in FP3.

“I think it’s my worst weekend before qualifying, really,” he said.

“I just can’t figure out how to pull the tenth I’ve been missing onto the Max and the Ferraris. I’m just resetting everything.

“We made a small change in qualifying and everything came alive. I think on this tarmac we were just playing around with some tools and we put laps where it mattered.”

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB19

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB19

Photography: Michael Potts / motorsport pictures

Perez explained that he had been struggling to maintain his balance on the brand new tarmac in Miami, where there was little grip and let several riders out.

Asked what he was missing, he said: “It was everything. It didn’t come together.

“It’s one of those weekends where I struggle with balance and confidence. This tarmac is very temperature sensitive.”

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Verstappen is ninth and Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix presents Perez with the perfect opportunity not only to claim his third win of the season, but also for the first time in his Red Bull career. Drivers standings ahead of his Red Bull partner.

He added: “I just want to go game by game and I’m going to go out and cheer on my team because they’ve done a fantastic job and yeah, see what happens tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is a new opportunity to start from pole.”

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Alonso vs Verstappen; who beats whom? 'Man, that is hard'

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While Fernando Alonso is not yet in contention for a win in 2023, the Spaniard’s performance in a relatively strong Aston Martin looks like a comeback. Even with a slightly better car, the nearly 42-year-old F1 driver could take on Max Verstappen, a fight everyone including Pedro de la Rosa would love to see.

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Mercedes and Ferrari set for crucial 2024 no-blanket Pirelli F1 tyre test

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The race in Barcelona is significant because Pirelli raced on its 2024 tires just once before the FIA ​​made a final decision on whether to go ahead with the original race plan – after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, where Red Bull took part. There is no blanket for the game next season.

Current rules say the blankets will remain in place until 2024, and a decision on whether to change and abandon them must be made by July 31.

Several drivers who tested early prototypes of the blanketless tires in winter were not happy with them, with Lewis Hamilton calling them “dangerous”.

However, testing after the Bahrain Grand Prix showed more promise and Pirelli believes next week’s race in Spain will represent a further step.

An early design of the future structure will be used for this year’s British Grand Prix and was tested by drivers in Barcelona on Friday.

The FIA ​​has approved the carpetless all-wet tyres, which were first used by Sergio Perez and the Haas drivers during the Monaco Grand Prix.

“It’s very important for us,” Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra told Autosport of the Barcelona race.

“We’re testing most of the compounds, we have a lot of variants. We’re trying to test different structures to move forward because the goal is to have no blankets in 2024.

“So we need a structure that obviously needs to have good integrity, a high level of integrity, but needs to work really well at the start of the run when the pressure is lower and help the compound get to temperature and become in the operating range .

“So we’re continuing to develop new structures. Then we’ll start looking at new families of compounds that don’t use blankets. So I think that’s going to be a good test for us.

“The Barcelona we know is representative because we have high-speed sections. It’s a normal track, a more complete track compared to Bahrain when we tested at the beginning of the season.”

While not entirely representative, Bella believes the Bahrain test has helped point Pirelli in the right direction, with the tires due to run in Spain next week meeting the requirements.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23

Photography: Andy Horn / motorsport pictures

“I think we’ve gotten some interesting stuff,” he said. “Obviously Bahrain is not really important for all circuits because you have a high temperature on the track and you have high traction demands and braking demands.

“So we need to test the new structure on different tracks where you have high lateral loads, higher severity and maybe cooler temperatures compared to Bahrain, just to see where we’re going in a good direction effort.

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“When we were testing in Bahrain, we had some good options out of the box. But there were still some things that needed to be fine-tuned, finalized, and this was a new proposal.

“So that’s what the test is for. We’re trying to develop a structure that helps generate the temperature on the tyre, so that the compound can work. That means the structure is less stiff and can increase stiffness as pressure increases .”

Bella believes Pirelli will finally get the FIA’s approval to ditch blankets in 2024.

The test will also see the Mercedes track debut of the team’s reserve driver Mick Schumacher, who will tackle the W14 on Wednesday after George Russell entered the race the previous day.

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Fernando vs Verstappen; who beats whom? 'Man, that is hard'

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While Fernando Alonso is not yet in contention for a win in 2023, the Spaniard’s performance in a relatively strong Aston Martin looks like a comeback. With a slightly better car, the nearly 42-year-old F1 driver could challenge Max Verstappen. A fight that everyone, including Pedro de la Rosa, wanted to see.

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