A dejected Sergio Perez pinpoints one area that cost him massively in the F1 US GP qualifying

Sergio Perez revealed that his drop in performance in qualifying came down to a lack of balance in the Red Bull. The driver had another poor qualifying session sd he was only able to qualify in P9.

What made it worse was that the Mexican's teammate also had a bad session as his pole lap was deleted due to track limit infringements.

This does end up adding even more pressure on the Mexican's shoulders after a string of poor results has hindered his prospects of keeping the seat at Red Bull.

With Sergio Perez qualifying in P9, it looks even worse because the driver has been beaten by both Alpine, both Mercedes, both Ferrari, and Lando Norris. All of these drivers have a slower car under them and that's just not ideal.

As quoted by Racingnews365, Sergio Perez attributed the bad qualifying to a lack of balance that meant he could not hook a lap together.

“It wasn't a straightforward one [session]. I was struggling with the balance from low speed to high speed, especially in the low speed. We made some changes that probably didn't help us as much. The margins were so tight today that a 10th would've looked so much different in the qualifying [result] but we are on the wrong side of it."

He added:

“Hopefully, we can have a better shootout and get some points. That is what happens in these sprint events unfortunately, but it's just part of the challenges so we'll see what we are able to do."

Red Bull recaps Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen's qualifying

After the session, Christian Horner recapped what had been a disappointing session for Red Bull. Talking about Max Verstappen, Horner talked about how the track infringement was unfortunate as it cost the team a pole position.

“It looked like we were going to get pole today but then a small lock up at turn 1 put Max on the back foot, so he had to give it absolutely everything. He tried, but unfortunately, we didn’t quite do it today."

Horner echoed what Sergio Perez said when it came to the Mexican as the Red Bull boss put down the bad session to a lack of balance.

"Checo struggled with balance slightly but it was tight margins with not a lot in it but it will make for an interesting race on Sunday. We start from P6 and P9 for the race, which makes things a little harder for us, but there is always an opportunity for victory and we look forward to seeing what Sunday brings."

Both drivers will be starting the race on Sunday outside of the top 5 and will be hoping to salvage a good result for the team.