Perez expects tough F1 race as rain undoes Racing Point potential

Sergio Perez admits qualifying for the Styrian Grand Prix was a ‘big disappointment’ for him as Racing Point’s searing dry weather performance deserted them in a wet qualifying session.

Arguably the team to lost most from the marginal decision to go ahead with qualifying despite the tricky conditions, Perez had a possible front row in his hands if the session was rained off and grid positions decided by FP2 laps.

However, in the slippery conditions of qualifying, the low downforce Racing Point RP20 appeared to struggle in the wet with Perez flirting with the exit at the first time of asking before his hopes of progressing were ruined by a late red flag as he hoped to improve.

Set to start a provisional 17th on the grid, Perez isn’t so convinced that even a dry race will allow him to make rapid progress towards the points.

"It's a big disappointment," he admitted. "You know we were on for a great weekend as we have great pace in the dry. But in the wet we couldn't find our rhythm.

"I struggled a lot to generate any tyre temperature. It took me two to three laps to generate the temperature and at the end I was coming on a good lap but then the red flag stopped that lap. There's nothing we can do now other than think forward for tomorrow."

“We had great potential, we showed great things yesterday, there is nothing we can do now other than learn from what went wrong. I struggled a lot to generate tyre temperature, now it is just a question of what we can do for tomorrow with the strategy and hopefully ne able to make some progress.

"It's going be difficult to make any progress to overtake, but certainly we have a good car underneath us, so we will try everything. I think we've done it before, so hopefully we can do it again tomorrow."