Perez will start ahead of Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) in Sunday’s race after the one-hour qualifying session on Saturday, which is split into three segments with five cars each being knocked out in Q1 and Q2 before the top-10 shootout of Q3.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc crashed out of Q3, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen didn’t complete a lap in the session, due to an error and the red flag, and will start ninth.
Perez set the early bar at 1m28.306s, a tenth clear of Leclerc and Verstappen. Leclerc briefly took away P1 with 1m27.895s, before Verstappen beat that with 1m27.363s and Sainz took P2, albeit three tenths down.
Falling at the first hurdle were Lando Norris (McLaren), Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Logan Sargeant (Williams).
Verstappen set the initial benchmark at 1m27.110s, and Sainz got to within 0.038s of that.
Leclerc beat them both with 1m26.964s before Verstappen responded with 1m26.814s to grab back P1.
Knocked out at this point were Alex Albon (Williams), Nico Hulkenberg (Haas), Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo) and Nyck de Vries (AlphaTauri).
Perez took the initiative on the opening runs, taking provisional pole with 1m26.841s. Verstappen and Leclerc both made big errors early on, allowing Alonso up to P2.
On the final runs, Leclerc spun at high speed into the wall at Turn 6, damaging the right-rear corner.
That meant Alonso will start from the front row alongside Perez, ahead of Sainz, Kevin Magnussen (Haas), Pierre Gasly (Alpine), George Russell (Mercedes), Leclerc, Esteban Ocon (Alpine), Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo).