The Mexican driver has definitely started the 2024 season on the right foot by scoring a P2 in the Bahrain GP. A challenging qualifying session had seen him start from P5, 0.358s off his teammate Max Verstappen’s pace, but Perez was able to recover in the early stages of the race, overtaking both Ferrari drivers and Russell on his way to P2 by lap 14.
The Mexican driver achieved his best F1 result since the Italian GP last September, and was definitely pleased with the outcome of his race, as he said in the post-race press conference:
“Starting from P5, it’s always nice to make good progress. There was a lot of battles on track, which, around this place, you just go into a very different strategy once that happens, you know. You are sliding a lot more on traffic, and I think, overall, it’s a very good team result.
“It was quite close with the Ferraris, with the Mercs early on, we were fighting with the DRS, obviously,.”
In the final stages of the race, Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz actually had managed to get closer to Perez, also due to his different tyre strategy. Ultimately, however, the former Racing Point driver was able to hold on to his P2:
“I knew that it was just about managing, you know, because he obviously pushed us to stop early, and we just stopped quite early, actually. It was going to be a very long stage, so we managed to progressively build the gap, keep that gap between us consistent, and I think it worked well.
“We had a few other issues with the gap towards the end of the race, that meant that our degradation was getting quite a lot worse towards the end of the race.”
Asked if he had expected Red Bull to retain such an advantage over the rest of the grid, Perez denied, admitting to be pleasantly impressed at their advantage in Bahrain:
“Today was a very nice surprise. We were definitely expecting the people around us to be a lot stronger. I think, like Max says, this is probably the worst place for degradation, so I think the better it is, the closer it will get.”
The grind never stops when you are a driver for the championship-winning team. In fact, the Red Bull driver is already looking forward to the next round, set to take place in Saudi Arabia in a week:
“Jeddah will be a very different challenge, so it will be interesting to see where we are there. Also I believe that the car will be strong there with the high-speed corners, so I think it should be another strong weekend for us,” said thewinner of the 2023 edition of the event.
The RB20 has already made a strong impression, starting out with a podium lockout, the fastest lap and pole position. The runner-up in the 2023 drivers’ standings discussed his team’s choice to change the concept that had won them all the races of the past season bar Singapore:
“I think it was definitely a risk to not change the concept, but everything has been working. The car is very similar, balance-wise, to what we had last year. It’s just better in all regards.
“But we’re still learning about our new car, like everyone is, so I think that when we take it to very different circuits, we’re going to be learning a lot. So hopefully we keep this progression going, and we are able to develop the car stronger than our rivals,” he concluded.
