Perez has again struggled to match the form of his team mate in Spain
Sergio Perez admits that he expects a “long afternoon” after being consigned to 11th on the grid for the Spanish GP.
The Red Bull driver came to Barcelona carrying a three-place grid penalty from Canada, and after difficult weekends in Monaco and Montreal he has once again struggled to match team mate Max Verstappen.
He was eighth in each of the three qualifying sessions, with the penalty pushing him outside the top 10 for the start.
Nevertheless he believes that he will be in better shape for the race.
“I think we were finding the light out of the tunnel,” he said when asked by this writer about his session.
“Unfortunately, my final sector in Q3 was a little bit too poor. I lost a bit too much compared to myself, I think we could have been a lot closer. We only had one single set, so that made things a little bit tricky. The wind changed a bit.
“But overall, I think we’ve been a little bit too far this weekend. We’ve been chasing the balance every now and then, but I feel like we’ve done some good steps, which made me feel a little bit more comfortable.
“Margins are so small. I think to really find those tenths, I needed the progression, and I didn’t have that progression through the weekend. So we’ll work on that, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll have a good race car.
“We have to work a lot on that as well. So we’ve compromised a little bit qualifying for hopefully good tyre degradation.”
Regarding that focus on the race set-up he added: “I think we needed to be really good and strong on that regard.
“So tomorrow is going to be a long afternoon, so hopefully we are able to clear the people ahead quickly, and make progress early on in the race.”
Perez noted a recent simulator session in Milton Keynes brought mixed results.
“I think we explored the car a lot, he said. “I think we struggled a lot more than we anticipated in Barcelona. Obviously, the correlation sometimes can be good, sometimes not. I think tyre issues have been also a bit of a standout.
“So it’s been quite hard to pick up a direction over the weekend. But I think we’re just getting there, and hopefully tomorrow we are able to show some good race pace and turn the page quickly.”
Adam Cooper F1 