07 May 2023 , 19:20
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Sergio Perez could not explain the gap between himself and Max Verstappen in practice ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.
The Mexican took pole position for the race in qualifying as his team-mate had his plan ruined by a Charles Leclerc crash. It was something of a surprise result given just how dominant the Dutchman had been in practice, particularly the second and third sessions.
By contrast, Perez was struggling to get top performance out of his Red Bull during those sessions. After taking pole he told reporters: "I'm very pleased, because it's been a very difficult weekend for me up to qualifying.
"I think this tarmac is just very different to anything else. And I was just trying to figure out how to get the maximum out of the car, out of the balance, because even on my final lap, I was still finding things out that were working better. So we haven't had a straightforward weekend. So it tastes a lot better once you deliver under such a bad weekend."
But while he struggled, Verstappen showed excellent pace to top the timesheets in both FP2 and FP3 to make himself firm favourite for pole ahead of qualifying. Asked why he could not match his team-mate, Perez explained that it was a "confidence" issue.
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He said: "When I was looking at the data and seeing what Max was able to do, I could simply not do that and I was struggling a lot. It was not small differences, it was quite big. We did one good change [before qualifying], which I won't go into too much in detail, obviously.
Max Verstappen endured a difficult qualifying (Getty Images)"But also just learning about the asphalt, I think, through qualifying and playing with a balance and finding that rhythm was much more important than I really thought, so I really got a good understanding in qualifying finally. So [I'm] now looking forward for tomorrow. I'm sure that will be able to translate that into race pace."
Verstappen was annoyed after qualifying ninth, but his ire was directed at himself rather than Leclerc for the crash which prevented his final flying lap. The Red Bull racer had made a mistake on his first lap which meant the fact he did not set a representative time was just as much his own fault.
"It's going to be tough. I made it difficult for myself so I have to accept that," he said. Nevertheless, he is confident in the machine he has underneath him and still expects to finish "minimum P2" in the race.