Perez aims 'to get everything out of the car' at Portimão

Sergio Perez says he's still going through the process of settling in at Red Bull, but the Mexican aims to be "in the mix" this week at Portimão and to get everything out of his team's winning car.

Perez finished fifth in Bahrain on his race debut with Red Bull and qualified on the front row at Imola where he was caught out by the tricky conditions in the race, with a spin and a penalty leaving him a lowly P11 at the end of the day.

But Max Verstappen's near win at Sakhir and outright triumph in the Emilia Romagna GP provided clear evidence that Perez has a winning car at his disposable this year, and the 31-year-old is determined to make the most of his package in Portugal.

"Imola is a pretty tough track to get on top of and maximise, especially if you’ve recently swapped teams, but in Portugal I hope to be in the mix and get everything out of the car," he said in Red Bull Racing's Portuguese GP preview.

"We know what the car is capable of and the goal is to deliver on its potential. The positive is that the pace is there, we just need to continue building on our form and take another step forward.

"Obviously the more work you put in, the more you get out, so I analyse, I make notes, I speak to the engineers and I watch back footage. Everything you do just helps get you as ready as possible.

"You can see with everyone that has changed teams this year, it takes time to get up to speed.

"Everyone is good, everyone is exceptionally fast, it’s just a process you need to go through before everything comes to you naturally and hopefully we can achieve that in the opening races of the season."

• Read also: Marko annoyed by Perez's 'very bad' race performance

Perez highlighted Red Bull's level of motivation following the performance of the team's RB16B in the opening rounds of 2021. But preparation is key insists the one-time Grand Prix winner.

"The motivation is sky high," he said. "The way we work at Red Bull, we prepare our race weekend to take the maximum from it because we know if we do everything right we have a realistic chance of winning the race.

"Everyone in the team is also pushing really hard to try to improve the RB16B so we can maximise every single weekend with both cars – that’s the target.

"Imola was a missed opportunity as I think we should have finished 1-2 but hopefully we can achieve that this weekend."

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