Sergio Perez thinks that Red Bull “lost track somewhere” with the alterations made on his side of the garage during second practice at Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Perez is aiming to rebound from a tumultuous recent streak which has witnessed him fail to advance into Q3 in the past three rounds and manage a pitiful four points.
However, the Mexican slumped to outside the top 10 in the second practice hour in Barcelona with 13th place, despite benefitting from track evolution with a later lap.
Having been within the top five positions in the opening practice session, Perez believes that the set-up tweaks made to his RB20 in FP2 were behind his sudden drop.
“I think it started the day well, but then into FP2 we did quite a bit of changes and I think we lost track somewhere, plenty of things to analyse,” Perez said.
“We’ve done a lot of changes, we’ve explored the car quite a bit, so hopefully we are able to pick the right bits going into tomorrow.”
Perez will be hit with a three-place grid drop due to driving with a wounded car in Canada and he’s conceded that minimising the damage will be essential to his race.
Asked how crucial qualifeing will be on a circuit where passing has not tended to be straightforward compared to other venues, Perez replied: Super, super crucial.
“With the lack of overtaking around this place, it’s going to be very important to be able to qualify well, to be able to get into a good position on Sunday.”
Meanwhile, team-mate Max Verstappen wound up second quickest in FP1, 0.024s behind Lando Norris, and then fifth in FP2 as Red Bull’s rivals showed strong speed.
But the Dutchman isn’t concerned by the pecking order from practice, citing that he was pleased to avoid the hitches that hampered his preparation in previous rounds.
“We just tried a few different setups out there, FP1 and FP2, so it’s just trying to fine-tune a little bit,” he explained.
“But at least I think the day itself was a bit more normal without any issues.
“So that’s what we were hoping for and now it’s about just trying to tidy up a little bit the car. But that’s quite normal.”
Asked about the upgrades that Red Bull has brought to this weekend, Verstappen added: “They were very tiny, nothing too big. But so far, everything is feeling normal.”
