Sergio Perez blames stickers and traffic for Monaco Q1 exit “disaster”

Sergio Perez has blamed his shock Q1 exit during qualifying for the F1 Monaco Grand Prix on stickers and traffic.

The Red Bull driver suffered a shocking elimination in the first part of qualifying in Monaco with a time good enough for only 18th on the grid.

As well as encountering traffic, Perez felt his lap had been ruined by advertising stickers that had fallen onto the track due to the drivers repeatedly brushing the walls.

"It was a disaster because firstly on my lap I encountered a lot of traffic into Turn 6, into 7 and there were some stickers laying down on the apex of 8 so I had to avoid all of that,” the Mexican said.

"I ended up losing a couple of tenths that would have been enough to get through. I was half a second off P1 so it was just a complete disaster, unfortunately.”

Perez added: “Basically, the weekend is totally over because here there is no chance to overtake, unfortunately.

"This morning we were finding the light. You know, I was P5. We made some more changes, but unfortunately, there were not enough to come through.

"And it hurts a lot, you know, because I think just by putting normal lap in, it would have been enough, but with the traffic that we encountered, it was really difficult."

Fernando Alonso was also dumped out in Q1 in 16th place, with the Aston Martin driver admitting he was simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time” during his Q1 laps.

“A lot of traffic – I think that was a killer for our qualifying,” the two-time world champion explained. “I think I lost three-tenths out of [Turn] 11, with a car just in front, then another two-tenths in the last corner… There were three cars parked there, starting their lap.

“No one’s to blame, I think they cannot vanish in the very last moment. This is Monaco, the cars are very big, they cannot disappear. We found ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time today, and this is very painful here in Monaco.”