Perez brushes off Ricciardo F1 Mexico GP qualifying performance

Perez had one of his best qualifying sessions of recent months relative to team-mate Max Verstappen, finishing Q3 just 0.160s behind the world champion as the pair lined up third and fifth.

However, the two Red Bulls were split by the AlphaTauri of Ricciardo, who was quick throughout qualifying, taking fourth, fifth and fourth across the three sessions.

It was the first time since he returned to the grid this year that Ricciardo had genuinely signalled that he could ultimately replace Perez, but the current incumbent downplayed the suggestion.

"Daniel did a tremendous lap," he said. "And I don't think it's just Daniel who wants my seat.

"Let's say there are a lot of other drivers who want to be in that seat. And it's great. If it's what they deserve, then I'm happy for them."

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Daniel Ricciardo, Scuderia AlphaTauri

Perez conceded that he hadn't expected the AlphaTauri to be so competitive in Mexico.

"Yeah, and not the Ferrari as well," he said, referencing the Maranello team's unexpected front-row lockout.

"But it is what it is. I think our progression in Q3 wasn't great, we ended up losing a set that potentially we didn't need to.

"Obviously you only know that after qualifying, and I think that really hurt us a bit, the progression we had in Q3.

"And when you are talking about a tenth and a half to two tenths, it would have changed completely our life. So it is what it is."

He added: "Especially during qualifying it ramped up a bit, the temperature, which did change, as I say, 3-4 degrees of track temp.

"In any other place, you don't feel that, but in Mexico, it changes the balance quite a lot, because you are so much on the edge, and always sliding around."

Perez said that he made progress over the US GP weekend, and that has continued at his home event.

"We already made the progress in Austin," he said. "We are making progress here. So yeah, I think we are on a good level with the car.

"Obviously, this track is really difficult, every single set of tyres that I had today performed differently. So it is a track that is really difficult to get the most out of it."

Expanding on his form, he said: "I don't want to go too much in detail. But certainly, I'll say that we got lost a few weekends with the set-up.

"And we took a reset. And I think for us it's looking better now, we're starting the set-ups a lot closer, and it was diverging through the weekends on things that we want to achieve differently."

Perez added that it won't be an easy race on Sunday, with cooling in traffic among the issues with which drivers will have to contend.

"It is going be very tricky tomorrow," he said. "But there is a long race ahead. It's a track that is difficult to overtake, but we will try to really make progress."