How has the lack of gurney flap hindered Sergio Perez at Las Vegas?

Sergio Perez endured a shock elimination in the first segment of the qualifying session. The Mexican could not pinpoint a specific issue on his flying laps, claiming that the general lack of grip has hampered his chances in qualifying.

Red Bull kicked off its race weekend at Las Vegas in a difficult manner, with both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez complaining about a lack of grid on Thursday. While the Dutch driver managed to fix the majority of his issues for qualifying day, Perez continued to struggle in qualifying, exiting in Q1 after complaining about a lack of grip.

Commenting on his issues, the Mexican driver said that he has "been struggling with the grip, it is weirdly difficult to put a lap together, with sliding and grip with the tyres. I did expect a very difficult qualifying and it turned out to be a very tricky one.

"We have been lacking a lot of low-speed performance and we haven’t been able to put the tyres in the right window, that was the main issue and has been very costly in this session. I wanted more today but the progress was not enough."

Interestingly, Red Bull's choice of downforce level might have further complicated things for the six-time F1 race winner. The Milton Keynes-based squad has found itself in a very difficult position ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. The team does not have a low-downforce rear wing which hampered its chances in Monza at the Italian Grand Prix. In Italy, the reigning team champion outfit ran a medium-downforce rear wing which featured a modified flap section.

The Austro-British squad had opted to trim the upper flap from the lowest downforce rear wing already in its offering to meet the requirements of the Monza circuit, and with the financial regulations heavily restricting teams in their development paths, Red Bull appears to have done the same for this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Following the opening day, Red Bull's motorsport advisor Dr Helmut Marko said that the reigning champion team did not have an optimal rear wing configuration for the high-speed Las Vegas circuit, and arrived in Nevada with a similar solution to what it used in Monza at the Italian Grand Prix.

"We don't have another rear wing, a smaller rear wing, as we see it on our competitors. It would be more helpful, for sure," added Marko.

While Perez finished the opening practice in P10, half a second behind his team-mate, he found his car more difficult to drive from the second practice onwards. The change in balance was partly down to Red Bull's choice to further reduce the rear downforce of the car by removing the Gurney flap between Free Practice 1 and 2 in a bid to improve its straight-line speed.

However, the lower downforce level apparently has made things even more complicated for Perez as he completely lost trust in the back end of his car, while Verstappen could get used to the even lower level of downforce.