German GP: McLaren's Sergio Perez says set-up change made car worse
Sergio Perez believes he would have been more competitive in qualifying for the German Grand Prix had McLaren not reverted to a previous car set-up
The Mexican experienced issues to the rear of his McLaren during final practice and the team elected to make several changes to the MP4-28 in compensation.
"It was not the best day for me as we had some problems with the rear of the floor in FP3," said Perez, who qualified only 13th. "We went back to the set-up we ran yesterday and it didn't help.
"It made the car very understeery and I struggled to get the tyres up to temperature."
Perez narrowly made it through to Q2 by one-hundredth of a second before taking 13th, while team-mate Jenson Button lines up ninth.
"I have struggled to match him all weekend," said Perez. "But I hope we can get a better result tomorrow."
Button elected not to set a time in Q3 and has the option of choosing which tyre compound to start the race on.
"We chose not to run and played a bit of cat-and-mouse with Nico Hulkenberg," said Button. "It's not too bad - we're on the clean side.
"I don't know what is going to happen in the race, but I think we have put ourselves in the best position for tomorrow."
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Brazilian GP: Sergio Perez crash 'looked worse than it was'
Phillip Island V8s: Tander wins, Whincup reclaims championship lead
British greats on the British GP
Red Bull in no rush to finalise 2025 F1 line-up
Perez: Red Bull can be more resilient to graining after Melbourne
The three factors behind Verstappen overturning Perez's real Suzuka advantage
Why Norris' China F1 sprint pole lap was deleted and reinstated
2024 F1 Chinese GP sprint qualifying results: Norris takes pole
How Bruce McLaren's death shaped more than just his F1 team
MotoGP schedule: When is the next MotoGP race and where will it be held?
Honda MotoGP boss "confused" by "good improvements" not working
Friday favourite: Why Herbert prefers a car he had to wrestle above his F1 winners
New Time Attack competition for 1990s F1 cars launched by AGS successor
The short-term pain that hides a very real Williams improvement
How a Shanghai to Sheffield journey paved the way for China’s F1 hero
Why F1 2026 worst case fears could be key to new rules success
How the F1 driver market situation sits for each team with 2025 openings
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments