Sergio Perez breathes a sigh of relief: he will start in second position in the Belgian Grand Prix, behind the Prancing Horse driver Charles Leclerc. The pole was taken by his teammate, who however will start only tenth due to a penalty for having unmarked the fifth internal combustion engine.
It’s a difficult time for the Mexican, who risks being left without a seat due to a clause in his contract that requires him to be less than 100 points behind Max Verstappen at the summer break. The gap between the two, however, amounts to 141…
Despite the precariousness of his situation, Perez does not hide his satisfaction at being back on the front row after several races, underlining that he managed to do so in complex conditions, given that rain characterised qualifying in the Ardennes.
The Red Bull driver, who narrowly made the cut to Q3, justified his poor performance in Q2 as follows: “I wasn’t in sync with the other drivers in terms of which lap to set the time on, so we were lucky to be able to be tenth.”
This prevented him from having a new set of tires to use in the final part of qualifying, unlike Leclerc. Perez, however, managed to put it all together, signing a time slower than the Monegasque by only 11 thousandths. For most, starting second can be an advantage, because it will allow him to have a slipstream on the long straights of Spa-Francorchamps.
“I think second is the best we could hope for here at Spa.” And that’s true, because on the long Kemmel straight he will have the first great opportunity to overtake Leclerc by exploiting the slipstream effect. There is a but: Red Bull has chosen the most loaded configuration with the aim of going fast in the central sector of the track. This could act as a brake on the RB20 number 11 when it does not have the aid of the DRS.
The conditions expected for tomorrow are different from those of the Belgian Saturday: a dry race is expected and the Mexican is convinced he has “the chance to do better than today and aim for victory”.
What will make the difference? According to the Red Bull driver, there are two elements that will make the difference.
“I think degradation and graining will be the determining factors tomorrow. With this new asphalt there are still a lot of things to understand, but I have a good feeling for tomorrow so we’ll see.”
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