F1 News
Perez stresses Red Bull 'need to exploit' car to improve in Las Vegas
Sergio Perez is feeling positive heading into qualifying day at the Las Vegas Grand Prix despite Red Bull's lack of performance. The first day in Sin City was difficult for both Perez and Max Verstappen. Over one lap, the speed is yet to show itself in its entirety. As for the long runs, though, there was hope among both Max Verstappen and Helmut Marko. The Mexican driver, who is still searching for his first win of the season, agrees with the pair and believes that Red Bull still has a lot more to give this weekend.
With a P5 in FP1 and a P17 in FP2, it was not a great day for Verstappen. Perez didn't manage to do any special laps either. The Mexican was 10th in FP1 but 19th in FP2. Red Bull shouldn't be worrying yet, Perez believes. After all, Friday's leaderboard should never be looked into too much, as a lot of teams, maybe including Red Bull, are yet to show their capabilities.
Perez believes in Red Bull's more promising long-run pace:
“I think we have some work to do over one lap, I think the long run looked a little bit more promising, but we have got to focus overnight to really try to exploit everything because we are not where we want," the Mexican began. A good weekend would be incredibly important for 'Checo'. He sits in eighth place in the driver's championship with 151 points, 242 points behind his teammate who leads the championship. If Verstappen finishes in front of McLaren's Lando Norris in Sin City, he will win his fourth consecutive championship.
Perez continued: "We were mainly struggling with balance in the low-speed today, the rear is stepping out a lot, we came down a lot on downforce with the rear wing, and it made it quite tricky. Especially over a single lap, we need to improve, and hopefully, we can do that, make another step and go in the right direction. We know that here, Sunday is the most important day, and you can overtake and so on, so it will be very critical to be able to have some good pace.” The Mexican concluded.
Red Bull's rear wing is much draggier than its competitors, according to Helmut Marko. The Milton Keynes-based team will still be looking to maximise their performance heading into qualifying.
This article was written in collaboration with Cas van de Kleut
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