Sergio Perez, despite kicking off the season with two second-place finishes behind Max Verstappen, admits he’s not yet completely at ease in his Red Bull Formula 1 car.
“I’m still not feeling super comfortable,” Perez concedes.
Perez secured two P2 finishes in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, trailing his teammate Verstappen. Red Bull seems to maintain its dominant position with the RB20, akin to its performance with the RB19 in 2023. However, other teams are optimistic about narrowing the gap.
In the recent race in Saudi Arabia, Perez had a decent performance throughout the weekend. Nevertheless, he believes a turbulent qualifying session on Friday cost him the opportunity for a better race outcome. Perez continues to grapple with adapting to the innovative RB20 machine.
“At the moment, the car is not super comfortable for me, but I understand a lot more how to maximize the performance,” Perez said to the media before Saudi Arabia.
“So that is something that is quite good for us, and [in Bahrain], I didn’t put it together.
“I should have been on the front row, you’re talking about a tenth or so, so you are tidying things up in the race.
“We didn’t have the right configuration with our set-ups and we’re not great at looking after the tyre, so my race was basically against Carlos [Sainz] than against Max.”
