Red Bull driver Sergio Perez says he must become a more rounded driver if he hopes to fight team mate Max Verstappen for the world championship this season.
Perez is heading into his third season at Red Bull. Verstappen has won the world championship during both their seasons as team mates.Speaking in today’s drivers’ press conference during the first day of pre-season testing, Perez said he has put a lot of work into trying to improve as a driver to be able to improve on his best ever championship finishing position of third last season.
“Certainly I want to improve what I had last year,” he told media including RaceFans. “I want to go to another step and become a more complete driver in all regards in order to make the next two steps in my championship.
Perez began last season in good shape, scoring the first pole position of his career in Saudi Arabia and rivalling Verstappen for pace at times. But as Red Bull improved their RB18, in particularly its front-end grip, Verstappen increasingly got more out of it than his team mate.
Verstappen was better able to exploit the oversteer-prone balance the car took on over the course of the season more successfully, Perez admitted.
“I would say that definitely there are very few drivers that like understeer,” he explained. “I think there’s not many drivers that like it.
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“From my point of view, I just think Max is able to cope with a less stable rear end [better] than I am able to cope. But at the end of the day, we both want a good front end. It’s just the question of how a stable the rear end can be. And certainly Max has been able to cope with a looser rear end.”
Perez was the only driver in the 2023 field not to enjoy any running during today’s opening day of testing in Bahrain other than Lance Stroll, who is out due to injury. With Verstappen putting Red Bull quickest of all at the end of the opening day, Perez is confident that his Red Bull team will have produced another strong car for this season.
“We were really working hard with the team to try and improve the car that we had last year,” Perez said.
“Certainly everyone is working really hard and you see that the competition is a lot tighter already this morning. It’s very difficult to measure where we really are compared to the others, but we certainly had a good start.”
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BasCB (@bascb)
23rd February 2023, 18:07
Sure, yeah. Perez has to improve in many areas if he wants to really challenge Verstappen on track. I still have a hard time believing he would be able to challenge for the championship even if he did that from the start of the season though.
Neil (@neilosjames)
23rd February 2023, 18:17
I think he’s so far behind Verstappen as a package, he’d need to become a mind-games expert of unheard of proportions and somehow mentally destroy Verstappen to even have a chance.
If he was exceptionally gifted at a particular area (eg, if he was a brilliant qualifier) he might be able to cause some problems, but I see his entire skillset as falling into the ‘solid’ category. Perfect number two, or lead driver for a midfield team, but he’s never going to be a real challenge for an elite level team-mate.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd February 2023, 23:20
Yes, I think perez was considered good at tyre management, but verstappen has improved at that as well lately.
Mayrton
24th February 2023, 11:18
Agreed. Solid driver. Perfect benchmark for where the car is vs the competition. The baseline RB must see as starting point for further development of the car, as they have to plan for not always having a Max in the other car.
Qeki (@qeki)
23rd February 2023, 19:03
For the brief time Red Bull has been on the top. Their running plan is clear.
Darryn Smith (@darryn)
23rd February 2023, 22:09
And if my aunt had balls…
Gigantor (@kbdavies)
23rd February 2023, 23:18
I almost choked on my saliva reading this! 😂😂😂
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd February 2023, 23:21
He doesn’t make a lot but indeed last year there were a handful that went under the radar, especially because he didn’t lose points with some of them but could well have.
JOA20
24th February 2023, 7:48
As much as I agree with Perez’s words that he needs to be more complete or whatever, is there anything he actually beats Verstappen at? I’d have said tyre management, but that’s not really a game-changer, unless MV were exceptionally bad at it which doesn’t seem to be the case. SP can only pray for bad luck on Verstappen’s side.