Perez: Early days but RB18 has 'good baseline and potential'

Sergio Perez believes Red Bull has established a good baseline for its new RB18 from which it can extract more potential before testing resumes in Bahrain next month.

Perez concluded pre-season testing with 74 laps under his belt and the third best time overall thanks to his performance on Friday afternoon in Barcelona in the closing hour of F1's final session at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The Mexican ended the day 0.418s adrift from Mercedes pacesetter Lewis Hamilton but set his time on Pirelli's C4 rubber while the Briton had opted for the softer C5 compound.

"I think we have a good baseline and good potential," Perez said.

"It is obviously early days, but I am really hopeful we will make some good steps before Bahrain and keep progressing with all the information we are going to gather from Barcelona.

"It is important to keep learning from my driving and the way I am adapting to the car and my team and then what the best way will be to maximise that.

"I think this season the challenge will be about maximising the whole weekend under the new regulations."

Reigning world champion Max Verstappen echoed his teammate's views but insisted that lap times were never on his mind as he logged 59 laps during the day.

"Everything worked well in the running we got and the car felt good," said the Dutchman.

"But our morning was somewhat interrupted by a number of red flags across the session, so we couldn't complete all of our planned programme.

"We just continued from what I did on day one and I think that was the most important objective for Barcelona. What is positive is that the car is running smoothly.

• Read also: Hamilton vaults to the top in final Barcelona session

"I don't pay attention to the lap times just yet; I will look into that when we get into Q3 in Bahrain.

"I just focus on doing a lot of laps and nailing down every single aspect of the car. I have really enjoyed driving the RB18 this week, it has a nice stable balance and I think it looks cool as well, so it’s good to jump into."

Guillaume Rocquelin, Red Bull's head of engineering, offered his summary of the week.

"I would say it has been a very promising few days with this new car and the most pleasing thing for me is that we have got a solid platform and direction to build from," said the Frenchman.

"We will consolidate some things that we have learnt here before Bahrain, but it is more considerate than a big step."

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