The Mexican was the faster Red Bull driver throughout Friday practice and looked to be in🍃 contention to fight for his maiden F1 pole position after a strong start to qualifying.

But Perez’s day unraveled in Q3 when an lock-up on his first flying lap left him only seventh. Perez was prevented from improving when a red flag caused by Yuki Tsunoda’s crash brought Q3 to a premature 💫end.

Perez will move up one position on the starting grid to sixth thanks to Lando Norris’ penalty, but he was nevertheless disඣappointed with how his qualifying panned out having made a step forward with his understanding of the RB16B in Baku.

“It was a big disappointm🌳ent today,” said Perez. “I was on a great lap, into Turn 4, I was about two-tenths up on my time, and I locked uꩲp.

“I think I was a little bit too🦹 close to Lando, and the wind picked up. 🐷I locked up, I lost the lap.

“I was pretty confident of getting a good lap time out of it. We’ve been strong all weekend. But in Q3, really when it matt𒊎ered, it was a disast🅰er.

“I’m very, very pissed off today given that we should definitely be in the top two, on the front row, at ver❀y least,” he added.

"But there are a lot of positives. I think we should be able to have a s🅰trong race pace as well.”

Traffic also proved frustrating for Perez in Q3, leaving him unable to⛄ find a good position to start his lap as the drivers jockeyed for position in a bid to gain a slipstream from each other.

“With the out laps, the track is so big, but because we all want to be together, 🍨it’s a disaster,𓂃 starting that lap,” he explained.

‘Actually in terms of track position, Q3 was the worst that I had all wဣeeꦅkend.

“We all went at the same time, and people created gaps, but then other people overtaking, not respecting the gentleman’s agreeme🎉nt. It just made things a bit harder.

“We didn’t put the 𝓰lap when it really counted today. As simple as that.”