Red Bull’s Sergio Perez has credited his strong start to the 2024 Formula 1 season to no longer “inventing” with car set-ups after he qualified on the front row in Japan.
Despite team-mate Max Verstappen having landed pole position at all four rounds in 2024, Perez had failed to start higher than third place prior to this weekend’s round.
However, the Mexican driver retained pace with the Dutchman through practice and the opening segments to wind up six-hundredths from landing top spot at Suzuka.
With the home of the Japanese Grand Prix notorious for being tough on rubber, Perez admits that it was challenging to balance stepping over the limit on a single lap.
“Everything was on a margin, it was so easy to lose a tenth or two just be overpushing a little bit in some of the corners,” he explained.
“Everything, the amount of energy that we put into the tyres around here is quite high, so it was quite difficult just to get the perfect lap nailed.
“It was close, it was close today, but I think the whole weekend has been good. We’ve made some progress, we managed to keep that consistency through qualifying.
But like Verstappen, Perez warned that Red Bull’s race pace through practice was not encouraging and has banked on tweaks improving the situation for tomorrow.
“I don’t think we are looking great at the moment in our long run pace, but we’ve done some changes and hopefully that will translate into our race pace,” he added.
Perez’s return to the front of the grid for the first time since the Miami Grand Prix almost 12 months ago now marks a stark contrast to his previous outing in Japan.
Last September, the ex-McLaren driver wound up eight-tenths behind Verstappen and endured a nightmare race, retiring on two separate occasions following contact.
Perez has attributed his turnaround to no longer pursuing set-up avenues each round and instead focusing on starting weekends with a better platform to build from.
Asked what he put being more comfortable in the RB20 compared to its predecessor down to, Perez remarked: “Like Carlos [Sainz] would say, we stopped inventing!
“We were playing around with the car too much, far too much, and just going through it.
“I think now we have a much better base, we are a lot happier and the weekends just progress.
“I think we were, when we came here last year, we were at the stage of our season where anything was working, and when you are in that, you just go in circles and circles, and in the end, towards the end of the year, we found it was better just to take a step back and don’t try to chase it too much with the set-up, because then you start compromising other things.
“I think that’s been the case for this year. I’m a lot more comfortable, a lot more happier, and the confidence is slowly coming back.”
