Sergio Perez has been demoted from twelfth to seventeenth on the grid for tomorrow's German Grand Prix after been adjudged to have blocked two drivers in qualifying. The Mexican driver was already disappointed after missing out on Q3 but the penalty compounded his misery.
“It is such a shame. It looked really promising for us until the rain set in. After I changed to soft tyres I ended up second fastest in Q1. Then we went out late on intermediates in Q2 and I was stuck in traffic. I had cars in front of me, but could not back off as there were some behind me as well.”
Sauber teammate Kamui Kobayashi will therefore inherit twelfth and the Japanese driver was frustrated by the weather after showing promising pace in the dry.
“It is a pity because I'm sure in dry conditions we would easily have been in Q3, as we had a very good pace. I even refrained from using soft tyres, and the lap I did on the medium compound was good enough for Q2. But then in the wet we didn't make it. In dry conditions my car is really good. In the wet it is a lot better than it was on Friday when I struggled badly. We found something wrong and did some changes, but it is still not completely right.”
Head of Track Engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara was also disappointed with the result but stressed the cars were set-up with a dry race in mind.
“The result is not exactly what we hoped for, as we expected more today. It was quite hectic at the beginning of Q2 when it started raining and we had to put the cars on intermediate tyres. Both drivers had been very quick in Q1, but then struggled in the wet. We knew qualifying would be run in wet conditions, while for the race conditions should be dry. Therefore we compromised the set-up to a certain extent.”
