Sergio Perez was not too happy with the issues he faced in F1 Australian GP weekend, but Christian Horner plays it down and hails the drive.
For Red Bull’s Perez, on the back of a win in Jeddah came a spin out of qualifying at Melbourne a couple of weeks later. He was forced to start from the pitlane after changes made to his car and the end result was a fifth place and a 10 point salvo.
But it may be deemed to be a case scenario of “what might have been” had he made it to Q3. He was certainly unhappy and frustrated too. He knows he has the machinery to win in 2023 especially as the fight may come down between Perez and Max Verstappen.
It is only three Grands Prix in, a minor faux pas, but it shows his dedication to the cause to an extent that he was not happy owing to his spin and exit in Q1. “It was really bad, very bad weekend,” Perez said to the media. “What happened on Saturday in Australia, it’s totally unacceptable”.
“We have to get to the bottom of it because I felt that we had a really good weekend up to Saturday.” As per above, an annoyed individual but having said that, his overall assessment of the race was positive. He had to dig deep considering the difficulties in overtaking even for the might of a Red Bull car.
“Generally, it was a good result,” continued Perez. “I obviously lost a bit of confidence with the car after qualifying, but we made a lot of changes overnight, so that helped heading into the race. I had a really good restart the first time, I jumped three or four places but then it was a bit of a mess with the DRS train”.
“I was frustrated later in the race because I couldn’t advance any further, but it was so difficult to get through the field with tyre deg low and everyone going on to the hard tyres quickly. Maybe if I’d been a bit more aggressive earlier on, I could’ve finished higher, but I’m happy we finished P5 and even managed to secure the fastest lap,” summed up Perez.
Overall, it wasn’t that bad a result but owed a lot to his Q1 exit. The other issue is Verstappen came through the field at Jeddah to take second from 15th on the grid, which Perez seemingly couldn’t replicate. Horner was told about the Mexican being a bit unhappy about the situation, but the Brit was pleased with his recovery.
“Albert Park is a very difficult track to overtake on,” said Horner. “I don’t think there were that many overtakes up and down the field. And Checo obviously made great progress from last on the grid. Even with three DRS zones its notoriously difficult to pass on. I spoke with him after the race he seemed to be happy to me”.
“That kind of comeback, fastest lap as well, was a great performance, a great recovery from him.” It really was a great recovery drive from the Mexican as Horner also addressed the issues he had in qualifying, alluding to the changes made by the team but also advised of no further discovery of problems that led to the issue, also defending his driver when the possibility of an error on Checo’s part was raised.
“No, we changed a few components on the car that may have contributed to it and I think that it didn’t sound like there was any reoccurrence of it in the race, so that was good news,” relayed Horner. “I think that he had a very difficult FP3 which was by far from the best preparation and then obviously he went out, was pushing hard on that first lap”.
“He was late and hard on the brakes into T3. There’s certain things that when you… all the bits and pieces together that weren’t quite perfect but often these cars aren’t.” Perez alluded about a slight issue with brake balance but once more, Horner ruled out same.
“No, it’s something that they control in the car, so I think we had a bit of the engine running on in FP3 but the levels that we saw in qualifying were nothing abnormal,” summed up Horner. It has been said that his drive could be in danger from Daniel Ricciardo which certainly plays up always plus Yuki Tsunoda’s name has been mentioned for 2025, and so Perez has to be at his absolute best to continue on.
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