Sergio Perez has expressed that he took no satisfaction that he was able to be closer in pace to Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen in Formula 1’s Italian Grand Prix.
Red Bull endured a disastrous showing at Monza as Verstappen came home in seventh place – his worst finish in 2024 – while Perez trailed two spots behind in eighth.
Perez maintained his eighth-place starting spot in the nascent laps, but he moved up one place when he overtook the struggling George Russell into Turn 1 on Lap 31.
However, Red Bull’s decision to shorten Perez’s second stint and cover Mercedes’ stop saw Perez become exposed to Russell, who completed an overtake on Lap 38.
But the Mexican has denied Red Bull made a mistake on the pit wall with an unsuccessful attempt to beat Russell, despite diverting from his optimal race programme.
“Yeah, the medium was quite tricky,” Perez reviewed. “We compromised a little bit the strategy to try and keep George behind, who was quite a lot faster than us.
“Yeah, unfortunately not enough and we struggled with balance today.”
The Austrian squad has endured struggles since introducing upgrades to the RB20 which has hampered the balance to the point Verstappen has called it a “monster”.
Perez has concurred with the Dutchman’s assessment about the root cause behind Red Bull’s woes, citing that an unstable rear is proving a hindrance to both drivers.
“I think it’s mainly balance,” Perez pinpointed. “We need to be able to stop the car and be able to carry the speed.
“The problem is that we are not able to throw the car in because the rear is nowhere. So it’s something we have to work on.
Perez at least provided a minor positive to Red Bull as he seemed to move aside his recent plight to end up a marginal 0.040 seconds behind Verstappen in qualifying.
However, Perez has claimed that he would trade that to have his usual sizeable margin to Verstappen in the circumstance where Red Bull has a race-winning package.
Asked whether he could take comfort in his improved competitiveness last weekend, Perez retorted: “No.
“I wish that the gap was a lot bigger and that Max was winning because at the end that would only help the team and in the Constructors’ [Championship] especially.
“So yeah, we got a lot of work to do to fix this issue and hopefully in the next few races it can be better for us.”
The six-time F1 race winner is adamant that Red Bull has gathered a handle on its problem, but he has admitted that resolving it represents an entirely different thing.
“I think the good thing is that we have no questions,” he explained.
“Now we know exactly where the issue is. We can clearly see it on the data. It’s just how to fix it, how to attack it.
“The next few weeks are going to be very important.
“I’m already tomorrow in the factory with the team, with the engineers, because I think next week is going to be a very important one.”
