Sergio Perez says he will be sturdy at any circuit this season given his improved efficiency throughout the final two Japanese Grand Prix weekends.
Suzuka was in direction of the tip of the 2023 calendar and Perez struggled in October, qualifying some 0.8s off Max Verstappen in fifth place, after which retiring after a number of collisions. This time round, Perez was simply 0.066s off his teammate in qualifying and comfortably completed second, and he sees the consequence as indicative of his potential for the whole season.
“I feel we’re in a very good momentum,” Perez stated. “I feel should you keep in mind right here final yr, it was in all probability my worst weekend. So I feel if we’re sturdy in locations like this with a number of high-speed content material, medium-speed, I feel we will be sturdy wherever else. It’s been a very good weekend.”
Perez appeared capable of keep comparatively near Verstappen for a lot of the primary a part of the race earlier than fading from rivalry, and he says it was increased than anticipated tire degradation that compromised his probabilities of sticking together with his teammate.
“With the beginning, doing that restart once more is at all times fairly laborious to maintain the main target for such a protracted time period. It labored alright. My second begin was a bit of bit higher, however simply not sufficient to get Max.
“I feel we paid the worth a bit of bit as a result of we had been a bit of bit off stability on that first stint, which meant we couldn’t preserve it alive. We needed to field and we had been undercut by Lando [Norris]. After which I needed to push an excessive amount of on that medium stint. However then on the laborious stint, I used to be much more comfy, and the tempo got here again. However yeah, I feel I suffered a bit from that first stint being a bit unbalanced.”
The struggles within the first stint had been highlighted by a slight off-track second on the second Degner nook, with Perez feeling he misplaced contact with Verstappen at that stage.
“It was fairly a difficult nook. Lots of people went on the market. I simply went in over the curb and I used to be simply hoping to don’t decide up any injury as a result of it’s really easy with these flooring to go off and have injury. So far as I do know, we don’t have any. I simply understeered huge and went over the curb.
“As soon as you’re on the prime of the curb, it’s sport over. You simply must let the automotive roll, go over it, as a result of it’s higher to be over than on prime of it. However I clearly picked up a number of grime on my tires, which took a lap or two to essentially clear up, and I misplaced a few seconds with that.”
