Perez explains why he didn't come close to Verstappen

Whereas Max Verstappen was at the top of the leaderboard during the first and second free practice sessions in Canada, Perez was twice far from his teammate. In FP1 Perez still finished in fourth place, but in VT2 the number two of the world championship did not get further than eleventh place.

Lesser day for Perez

''Unfortunately, there is not much we can read into the sessions today, to really work the car out you need to get good pace and then work from there, which I couldn’t do today. We had an issue with the set-up on our low fuel runs but luckily we managed to figure it out and the long runs were a bit more representative but still, we had a bit of an issue'' Perez said in Red Bull Racing's press release.

''Hopefully tomorrow (Saturday) we can sort everything out. I am a bit on the back foot but, all being well tonight, we are able to make the right compromises to be competitive tomorrow. We will see what the weather does for qualifying tomorrow because it could really shake things up. Max looks strong so that gives me the hope we can make my car competitive when it matters on Saturday.', concludes the Mexican.