While Perez’s teammate Max Verstappen leads the Drivers’ Championship, Sergio Perez is currently in eighth place after many disappointing race and qualifying results this year.

He was seeking redemption at his home Mexican Grand Prix, hoping to go beyond his success as the only Mexican driver to reach the podium at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and become the first to win there.

Instead, he suffered a shocking Q1 exit and will have to start the race from a disappointing eighteenth position on the grid.

After qualifying, Perez explained that he struggled to get the Red Bull to slow down enough to handle the circuit's challenging turns.

“I’ve been struggling quite a bit with braking,” said Perez quoted by Motorsport Week.

“Every time I try to brake and attack the braking, I just put too much energy through the tyres, and that makes it very tricky for me to stop the car.

“I’m having to modulate quite a lot my braking, and that’s something we can see in the data, but we are not able to fix it at the moment.

“Given that it’s all surface sensitivity here [in Mexico], it makes it a lot harder,” he added.

This result puts Perez’s 2025 Red Bull seat under even more pressure, as Liam Lawson, who impressed with his recent F1 performance at the US Grand Prix, is increasingly seen as a potential replacement.