Perez sees opportunity for Cadillac to crack Q2 in Monaco GP qualifying

Sergio Perez believes Cadillac has a chance of its first Q2 result in qualifying at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Cadillac has been fighting with Aston Martin for the back two rows at the majority of races so far this season, as it tackles its first year in Formula 1. However, upgrades have been slowly closing the gap to the midfield runners, and with the Ferrari power unit's deficit less pronounced in Monaco, Perez was just over 0.3s away from the top 16 in Friday’s second practice session.

“We are close, but it will depend,” Perez said. “I think we rely a little bit more on others messing up, which can happen around here. There can be a lot of chaos, so we just have to be there, put the lap together when it matters and get the maximum out of the car tomorrow. That's the target, and hopefully it can be our first Q2.

“We've been competitive since we went out. We are looking close. If we find a few tenths, it will change our lives. Everyone is on the same boat. It's all going to come down to qualifying, to put it all together when it matters and we go from there.

“I think it's a bit of everything [that’s led to the stronger performance]. Being confident with your car makes a big difference here. Also, with how the engine is working, the car probably makes less of a difference. The grid is a lot closer, and getting the tire and everything to work is always a challenge around here.”

Perez’s performance was followed by an early end to FP2 when he stopped at Casino Square with smoking brakes, but Cadillac’s engineering consultant Pat Symonds believes it was a one-off issue.

“Everything looked quite normal up until the point when we saw the sort of smoke coming out of Perez's car,” Symonds said.

“And as you could quite clearly see on television, it was a brake fire, but the fact it happened quite rapidly, we're sort of suspecting that something got damaged or something went into the duct. So the guys are just stripping that out to see just what we find from it.”