"He has had a horrible day today": Red Bull boss calls out Sergio Perez after a disastrous outing in Melbourne on Saturday

Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner stated that Sergio Perez had a 'horrible' Saturday at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne after he slid out of Q1 for the F1 Australian GP.

The Mexican driver could not get a handle on his RB19 throughout and eventually found himself beached in the gravel on Turn 3 during the first lap in Q1 in qualifying. Ahead of the qualifying session, Perez struggled to find any rhythm in FP3 and could not get to grips with the low grip circuit.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Horner said:

"He [Checo] has had a horrible day today. It started this morning. The car was late off the weighbridge. There were no major issues and his plan in P3 was always to run differently to Max. Not do a long run, he was just going to do two short runs. His first short run was (at turn 3). He never really recovered from that P3. Then this lap that was never going to be a consequential lap, unfortunately, lock up and go off.

Horner mentioned that the team will be looking into data from the car to see if there were any issues with the car that could have contributed to Perez's disappointing stint. He said:

"We are checking all the data to see if there is something in the engine management that has contributed to that. We are going through that as we speak. You saw him grab the brakes a couple of times - lock-ups and run deep. He ran off twice in FP3. And, on that first lap, he went in and pushed quite hard and locked. Ran into the gravel and couldn't come out the other side. We are now looking at what could have contributed to that. And try to ensure if there is something that it is not there tomorrow."

“It was very difficult to do anything out there" - Sergio Perez

Red Bull driver Sergio Perez mentioned that he could not do anything about the technical issues that led to his car going into the gravel and costing him in qualifying.

As per The Race, the 33-year-old said:

“We had a bit of a technical issue from FP3 and we thought we fixed it but we obviously didn’t. It was very difficult to do anything out there. I became a passenger as soon as I touched the brake.

He added:

"It’s something that is moving the brake balance quite far forward under braking and I just hope that we are able to fix it as a team tomorrow and be able to race and minimize the damage.”

It will be fascinating to see if Sergio Perez can bounce back in the main race on Sunday and how much damage limitation he can squeeze from P20 on the grid.