Sergio Perez Just Qualified Eleventh Places Behind His Teammate

Max Verstappen dragged his Red Bull to second. Sergio Perez couldn't even make it out of Q2. This wasn't a bad session — it was a masterclass in how to waste a top car.

Max Verstappen put his Red Bull second on the grid in Singapore. Sergio Perez put the exact same car thirteenth. This is qualifying, not a race — there are no strategy excuses, no traffic alibis, no bad pit stops to blame. Just driver, car, and one flying lap.

Key Finding

Verstappen and Perez drove the same car in Singapore qualifying. One finished P2. The other finished P13, almost a full second slower per lap.

Key Finding

Verstappen and Perez drove the same car in Singapore qualifying. One finished P2. The other finished P13, almost a full second slower per lap.

The gap between them was 0.9 seconds per lap. Not over a stint. Not averaged across a race distance. Per lap. In qualifying.

Let's be clear about what that means: if you gave Perez a ten-lap head start in Singapore, Verstappen would still pass him before the race finished. That's not a performance gap. That's a different postcode.

The gap only went one direction

PER vs VER — gap between them on every lap

Watch the blue line climb relentlessly after lap 10 — that's Verstappen pulling away lap after lap while Perez fell backwards through the field.

PER aheadVER ahead

Final gap: PER ahead by 553.4s.

Key Finding

Verstappen and Perez drove the same car in Singapore qualifying. One finished P2. The other finished P13, almost a full second slower per lap.

Yes, Perez had a lap deleted for track limits at Turn 11. So did Hamilton — three times. So did Verstappen at Turn 19. Track limits killed half the grid in Singapore. Everyone was fighting the same battle with the white line. Only one Red Bull driver lost it.

Verstappen's deleted lap would've put him on pole. Perez's deleted lap wouldn't have gotten him into Q3.

Key Finding

Verstappen and Perez drove the same car in Singapore qualifying. One finished P2. The other finished P13, almost a full second slower per lap.

The data shows Perez's tyres were actually improving as the session went on — positive degradation means he was finding time, not losing it. Verstappen's tyres were going off. Perez had the mechanical advantage in the final runs and still couldn't deliver.

That's the damning part. This wasn't about the car failing him. The car was helping him. He still qualified thirteenth.

Perez stopped trying earlier

PER vs VER — tyre strategy across 19 laps

Verstappen kept pushing through six pit attempts. Perez gave up after four. When your teammate is still fighting and you've already packed it in, the problem isn't the strategy.

PER: S | VER: S

Key Finding

Verstappen and Perez drove the same car in Singapore qualifying. One finished P2. The other finished P13, almost a full second slower per lap.

Singapore is supposed to be Perez's kind of track — tight, technical, punishing. A street circuit where precision matters more than raw speed. If he can't match Verstappen here, where exactly can he match him?

The answer, increasingly, is nowhere.

Key Finding

Verstappen and Perez drove the same car in Singapore qualifying. One finished P2. The other finished P13, almost a full second slower per lap.

Verstappen will start the United States Grand Prix knowing he can drag this car onto the podium even when it's not the fastest. Perez will start it knowing that even when his tyres are getting better, he still can't find the lap time.

Eleven places is a chasm. And it happened in nineteen laps.

Nadia Ferreira

@@nadia_f_racing

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