Sergio Perez has had a mixed start with Red Bull after replacing Alex Albon for the 2021 campaign.
In his first three races, he was able to finish in the top five twice. He even drove expertly and ended up beating Max Verstappen during the Imola qualifying.
However, Checo has made several mistakes, like getting knocked out of Q1 in Bahrain. Interestingly, there were reports earlier as well that claimed Red Bull has configured the car almost exactly to the liking of Max Verstappen.
He has credited his failures to the fact that he is unable to implement his driving style in his Red Bull RB16B.
“Everything that I used to do, very few things work in this car,” he told reporters in Barcelona.
“In that regard, I’m just having to adapt to a new style in the race, in qualifying, in practices with different fuel loads and yeah everything has to be very conscious.
“At every corner, nothing is coming naturally just yet, but to be where we are, being that close – at Portugal, I was very close in race pace so definitely we see good progress in that regard.”
With him not being too comfortable with his car yet, he is very cautious when it comes to setting it up. Rather than going for a personally customised set-up, he is replicating Verstappen’s.
“I’m taking the approach of first I need to adapt to the car,” the Mexican added.
“We have had such limited track time with these cars this year with the new rules of testing and also in practice that everything happens very quickly. So it’s very hard to do any work like we used to in practices when we had more time, now it’s really a couple of runs and the day is over.
“At the same time I have a very strong reference in Max, he’s obviously taking 110% out of the car from practice one all the way until Sunday, so I think first I need to get to that level and then move around.
“That’s my view. It makes no sense to follow another direction because I’m just going to get lost, so I’m working in a very similar basis as my teammate.”
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