Christian Horner claims ‘difficult’ to judge’ Sergio Perez’s Austrian GP due to ‘big hole in sidepod’

Sergio Perez at the Austrian GP endured another difficult race as he finished seventh. Perez was in a battle with Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg which caused a big hole in his sidepod. This affected the Mexican’s pace and was beaten by Hulkenberg at the Red Bull Ring.

Team principal Christian Horner believed it’s hard to evaluate Sergio Perez‘s performance in the recent race. The Mexican had to deal with significant damage to his car. On the first lap, Checo’s car had a major collision that caused a large hole in the sidepod. This damage greatly affected the car’s aerodynamics and reduced its speed on straight sections of the track. Horner compared this to having an air brake, which made it challenging for Perez to keep up with the competition.

Checo, again it was a tricky race for him. He had quite a significant contact on the first lap. That resulted in quite a big hole in the sidepod and then the loss of straight-line speed that gives you, it’s a bit like an air brake.

Christian Horner said, as reported by CRASH.net

Further, Horner explained it was difficult to judge the Mexican’s performance due to the big hole. The damage caused a significant reduction in the car’s straight-line speed, which made it challenging for Checo to compete effectively. Christian Horner mentioned that there was a noticeable impact on the lap times but didn’t specify exact time. The data showed a clear drop in performance because of the large hole in the sidepod. This made it tough for Sergio Perez to race at his usual pace.

That’s why he was struggling on straight-line speed. So, difficult to judge Checo’s race due to the damage that he had. All I know is he had lost a big hole, and it was being reported on the data that there was a significant loss because of it.

Christian Horner added

Sergio Perez noticed the improvements in his car due to the increased pace.

Perez reflected on his qualifying performance and felt that the car’s actual pace was better than what he managed to show. He explained that during qualifying, he had trouble finding the right balance with the car at the beginning. This issue caused him to go through the tires too quickly, which affected his overall performance. Despite these challenges, Checo believed that the car itself was capable of more speed than he showed in qualifying.

In qualifying, the main thing was it took me too long to dial into the balance early on, and we just went through the tires too quickly.

Sergio Perez said, as reported by formula1.uno

Checo felt that the car had more speed than what it had showed during the qualifying session. He believed their pace could have been better. Pérez also mentioned that their race pace was uncertain, but he felt that they had made some significant improvements to the car. These improvements gave him confidence that the car could perform better in the race, even though it wasn’t fully apparent in the qualifying results.

But then I think we had better pace than we showed. The race pace was a question mark, because I felt like we really did some improvements.

Sergio Perez added

Certainly, Sergio Perez believed he struggled to find the right balance with the car during qualifying. Despite this, he showed better pace and felt confident about the improvements made to the car, even though the race pace was uncertain.

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