Sergio Perez has revealed he learned a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of Ferrari’s 2023 car during the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Perez had started the race second behind Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen but the Mexican driver was leapt at the start by the fast-starting Charles Leclerc.
Despite the RB19 proving to be a substantially faster car on Sunday, Perez was unable to get past Leclerc immediately, spending the entirety of the opening stint behind the Ferrari.
Eventually, the four-time Formula 1 race winner would utilise fitting softer rubber at his first stop to breeze past Leclerc down the start-finish straight on Lap 26.
Perez has underlined how the 13 laps he spent trailing Leclerc was useful in teaching him substantial information about the behaviour of Ferrari’s SF-23 car.
“Yeah, I actually learned a lot about their car. You know where they are weak, where they’re strong, or stronger than us,” Perez claimed.
“So yeah, I think I need to make sure that it stays fresh for my engineers later in the briefing.”
Such was the devastating pace advantage Red Bull had over the competition in race trim, the battle for the win was always going to come down between Perez and Verstappen.
However, Perez’s failure to hold onto second at the start and then dispense with Leclerc quicker enabled his team-mate to build up an unassailable advantage at the front.
The ex-McLaren racer has concluded that was the defining moment where any chance he had of beating Verstappen for victory got away from him.
“Yeah, that was really the case, missing out to Charles on that first stint,” he bemoaned. “It was really difficult to get by him. He had the new tyres. So you could see the difference on that first stint.
“And as soon as I was getting a bit closer to him, trying to attack him earlier on, I was just degrading and destroying my tyres. So I had to be really patient and get my way through it.
“And once he did, I was able to drive some fast laps and, let’s say, that my tyres and on the second stint were in better shape than his and I was able to get through. But yeah, it was just too late. It was just a few laps too many, too late, and that put us quite behind Max.
“Once that happened, we basically just maintained the gap throughout the race. So we had no chance to fight for the win. But today was all about minimising the bad start. And we’ve got plenty of things to analyse, to try to improve and get this consistency throughout the season.”
After making a strong start with the regulations introduced at the start of last season, developments on the eventual title-winning RB18 drifted the car away from Perez’s liking.
The Mexican would subsequently only achieve two victories across the entirety of 2022 compared to Verstappen’s tally of 15.
Aside from its successor for 2023 appearing to be the class of the field in the infant stages of the year, Red Bull’s Motorsport Director Helmut Marko highlighted in pre-season how its new car is much better suited to getting the best out of both drivers.
With Red Bull making its best-ever start to an F1 season, Perez has reiterated his contentment with both the performance level and handling of the car at his and Verstappen’s disposal.
“Yeah, I’m comfortable,” the Red Bull driver said. “I’m comfortable with the car. I’m happy.
“I think we’ve got some work to do. I think we, both drivers are pushing the car in the same direction, which is good. And yeah, I think it’s been an amazing start to the season. Yeah, our best ever start ever, so very different to last year.”
Following Red Bull’s 1-2 at the Bahrain International Circuit the Austrian outfit leads the Constructors’ Championship by 20 points over its nearest challengers, Aston Martin.
The second round of the 2023 season takes place between 17-19 March at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Saudi Arabia. Last season’s event witnessed Perez claim pole position for the first time ever in his F1 career.
