Red Bull‘s Sergio Checo Perez, who started Sunday’s Canadian GP in second, was forced to retire in the ninth lap in Montreal.
Checo, with three wins and 20 podiums in F1, had his engine fail in the ninth of the 70-lap race and had to retire. According to Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, the problem was with the transmission of his RB18.
The Mexican driver retired while teammate Max Verstappen was leading the race and Spaniards Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Fernando Alonso (Alpine) were fighting for second place.
Checo had started from 13th position after a difficult qualifying session on Saturday in wet conditions. The Mexican was confident of making a comeback in the race and opted for the hard tyres at the start while the majority opted for medium.
At the start, Perez moved up two positions, overtaking Alex Albon and Valtteri Bottas. Checo was half a second off the McLaren on lap nine when a Honda power unit failure forced him to retire.
Perez said it was “a bad weekend” and that it hurt him to leave Canada with zero points. It is the Spaniard’s second retirement of the season, following his retirement from the Bahrain Grand Prix.
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