Perez gives his excuse for another Q1 exit: 'That's the main struggle'

Red Bull are in a battle with McLaren and Ferrari for the Constructors' World Championship. While Max Verstappen has almost secured the 2024 title, Perez has been far behind his teammate in recent weeks. It doesn't look like he will close the gap in Las Vegas either after more qualifying woes.

What went wrong for Perez?

"We've been lacking a lot of pace through the qualifying and that's been the main issue really for us. So it didn't get any better and in hindsight we should have used two [tyre] sets given that we were not so competitive in Q1. The main struggle is really that low speed with the tyres. It's where the main struggle comes from," Perez explained to GPblog and others in Las Vegas.

"I think just compromising the low speed has been quite tricky. Then the sliding, I feel like if I slide a little bit too much one tyre, then I finish it. I think we've got a fundamental issue at the moment with the car that is just not working for me. It's where the whole brain [power] is going to try and fix it up instead of compromising. At the moment we come to the weekends and we just explore a lot of things and then it's just a difficult one to make it work," Perez added.

Perez has now failed to escape Q1 nine times in 2024. "Well it's obviously not ideal. You want to be up there, especially when I know what I can do. But when you don't have that grip underneath you, then it's really hard and you're prone to a lot of mistakes and so on," Perez said.

Perez is contracted to drive for Red Bull Racing in 2025, but there is doubt about his future. If Red Bull do decide to make a change, Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson would be the leading candidates. Both drivers finished ahead of Perez in qualifying. Franco Colapinto is another leading candidate. The Williams driver had a hard crash in Q2.