Sergio Perez, Red Bull, Paul Ricard, 2022

Perez relieved to take third on grid after “worst weekend” of practice

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In the round-up: Sergio Perez says third on the grid for the French Grand Prix was a good result after his “worst weekend” of preparation for a qualifying session this season

In brief

Perez was outside of the top four positions in all three practice session across Friday and Saturday but took third on the grid for today’s race, 0.159 slower than team mate Max Verstappen. The hot conditions at Paul Ricard posed a set-up challenge, Perez admitted awterwards.

“We’ve been playing around with the set-up quite a bit since the beginning of the weekend,” he said.

“It’s very, very hot and somehow I’ve been struggling a lot, you know, it has been probably my worst weekend up to now in terms of preparation for qualifying. So it’s a decent result to pull it back.”

New Aston Martin floor was “breaking up” in third practise – Vettel

Sebastian Vettel said his preparation for qualifying was affected by a new floor specification “breaking up” during practice, limiting his running.

The Aston Martin driver was knocked out of Q2 in 14th place. Earlier in Saturday’s practice session, Vettel had only completed 11 laps – fewer than any other driver – and set his session-best time before the midway point in the session.

“We had an issue with the floor,” Vettel explained. “It was a new floor, but it was breaking up.

“We fixed it, not in time for third practice, so we had no run in the end, but in time for quali. Hopefully it’s fine for [the race], but I think we did what we could.”

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Comment of the day

With W Series champion Jamie Chadwick claiming a fifth race win in five rounds in the 2022 season and seventh consecutive win overall, @bernasaurus believes she deserves a genuine chance in a category like Formula 2:

I honestly think she’d be competitive in F2. I obviously don’t know how those behind W Series envisage things, nor her backers, or what they really want from it.

But I think her fighting Vips or Vesti or whomever for sixth or grabbing a podium in F2 looks better for everyone involved than her just walking the W Series title. If she fails in F2, then nothing really gained or lost – though I doubt she would fail given the right team.

I just think her winning seven races in a row in W Series is less productive for promoting women in motorsport than what her finishing third in an F2 race would do.

I don’t think Jamie is going to win an F1 title, but she has the potential to hold a special place going forward in how gender is perceived in motor racing.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Karan and Younger Hamii!

On this day in motorsport

  • 40 years ago today Rene Arnoux put his Renault on pole position for the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard. The circuit was similar to today’s configuration, although the first chicane Varrerie was faster and there was no chicane on the Mistral straight. Arnoux’s lap time of 1’34.406 was three-and-a-half seconds slower than Charles Leclerc’s yesterday

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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3 comments on “Perez relieved to take third on grid after “worst weekend” of practice”

  1. So we can put to bed the Nice GP idea for good.

    I wholly agree with the COTD.

    1. Why would you think she would be competitive in F2 when she wasn’t competitive in F3?

      I have nothing against women in motorsport – if someone wants to race, they should race – but W series is a weak field. Despite being an average national F3 driver, Jamie is the class of it.

      If the special place is “dominating the first women-only racing series” then I don’t think that is much to go into the history books for. Michele Mouton, Danica Patrick, even Giovanna Amati have achieved much more.

  2. Don’t think I agree with CotD.
    If she was F2 level, she’d be there already. Sponsors aren’t queuing up to jump behind her either, despite the enormous marketing potential of a high level, successful female driver.

    And the longer she stays in W series, the worse the outlook looks for her, I’d suggest. Everyone can see how deep the talent pool is in W (or isn’t to be more precise).
    You can’t work towards F1 – or even F2 for that matter – without taking on the boys and beating them.
    At least Tatiana Calderon is doing the ‘normal’ accepted career progression thing….

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