Perez says the MiamiGP had been his 'worst weekend' until qualifying, where he secured his second pole of F1 2023.
Leclerc then crashed on the second run, bringing out a red flag that ended the session without anyone getting a second lap on the board, locking Perez in for pole.
The result came as a surprise to the Mexican, who had been struggling for pace compared to his team-mate and the Ferraris until that point. In Q1 Perez was third 0.350s behind Verstappen, while in Q2 Perez dropped to fifth over half a second in arrears. In FP3 he had also been half a second off the Dutchman."I just couldn't figure out how to pull those tenths that I was missing all the time to Max and to the Ferraris. I was just resetting everything.
"We did a small change into qualifying and everything became more alive. And I think with this tarmac we were just playing a bit with the tools, and we put the lap in when it mattered."Perez explained he had been struggling for balance on Miami's brand-new tarmac, which offers little grip and caught several drivers out."It's one of those weekends where I was just struggling for balance, confidence. This tarmac is very sensitive to temperature.
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