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Qualifying ahead of the 2022 F1 Brazilian Grand Prix this weekend saw one of the most hectic sessions of the year unfold into Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Red Bull Racing's Sergio Perez losing out to the opposition. The penultimate race weekend of the 2022 F1 season brings with itself the Sprint format as drivers prepared to qualify on Friday to set up the grid for the 62-mile-long event on Saturday.
The session saw the rain gods take matters into their own hands, with intermittent drizzle throughout the session. After reaching Q3 with both drivers, Scuderia Ferrari, a team that has been known to make out-of-the-box decisions this season, decided to send Charles Leclerc on the green-sidewalled intermediate tires. On a track that had rapidly dried up from the previous session, the Maranello-based racing outfit gambled on more rain, making Leclerc the sole driver without slicks on the track.
The forecasted rain showers never came in time for the Monegasque as he struggled to keep pace with the field on his qualifying lap, ultimately dropping to P10. During his attempt to get his existing rubber to work on the track, Leclerc also held up Sergio Perez, one of his key rivals during qualifying. This also resulted in Perez not being able to show his pace at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, finishing in P9.
2018 Porsche Carrera Cup Champion and current DTM driver Thomas Preining suspected Charles Leclerc's actions during qualifying were calculated in the driver's head and said:
"He's a professional, he knows what he's doing.”
Preining implied that Leclerc held up Perez deliberately in an attempt to make the Mexican driver forfeit his lap, thus working in the Monagasque's favor.
Sergio Perez reacts to Charles Leclerc blocking him during 2022 F1 Brazilian GP qualifying
After Sergio Perez's run-in with Charles Leclerc during qualifying for Saturday's Sprint ahead of the 2022 F1 Brazilian GP, the Mexican driver was not pleased with his fellow driver in scarlet. Perez, who was on his fastest attempt of the session, lost out on a better starting position due to Leclerc's intermediate-shod Ferrari blocking him throughout his lap.
He spoke about the incident after finishing P9 in the session and said:
"It was just bad luck, but I really don't know what Leclerc and Ferrari did there, he was way too slow on his outlap on the Inter and I was sure he'd come into the pits because it was actually so obvious."
Meanwhile, Haas F1 driver Kevin Magnussen claimed a shock pole position during the hectic session and is set to start on the front row alongside Max Verstappen in tomorrow's Sprint race.
