Sergio Perez’s fairytale Red Bull move hits early trouble as car fails before start of Bahrain Grand Prix

© Provided by The i Sergio Perez was left fighting his way through the field from the back (Photo: Getty)

Sergio Perez’s Red Bull career could hardly have started in more inauspicious circumstances as he struggled to complete even the formation lap.

Saturday had not gone terribly well for the Mexican as he failed to make it into Q3, missing out on the top 10 in qualifying by three hundredths of a second. 

His teammate Max Verstappen had only gone three tenths quicker but stepped it up again in the final session to grab pole and show Perez what he could have won if he had not failed to record a fast enough time on the medium tyre.

He had already warned that the most difficult seat in F1, that of Verstappen’s teammate, was not yet fitting him too snugly – “it doesn’t seem to be coming naturally over a lap” – but what hampered him on Sunday night could hardly have been his fault.

Red Bull had noticed “something odd on the data” before the race and swapped to a new set of Honda control electronics and energy stores. They were perhaps informed by the fact that in the sister team AlphaTauri Pierre Gasly had spotted a problem and made the same change, but when Perez found himself staring at a blank dashboard, stationary on the side of the track, before the race had even started, no one seemed terribly surprised. 

The marshals rushed out to help him, but Perez waved them off, knowing if they helped him get it started, he could not necessarily rejoin the race.

Instead, he frantically bashed buttons on the steering wheel he has spent the last three months learning and managed to get it going, but not before the original start had been aborted, the field ordered to go around one more time, and Perez forced to start from the pit lane, effectively last.

However, Perez got his first ever grand prix win at the same venue having been dead last at one point and duly got on with trying to drive his way back to a points finish: within 10 laps, he had passed his old teammate Esteban Ocon for 12th place and by the time he had completed his final pit stop, he emerged into eighth place.

Follow i sport on Facebook for more F1 news, interviews and features. You can also join our F1 fantasy league for i readers – just click here or use code “7edd2b8a7e” to take part