Sergio Perez foresees a change implemented on his Red Bull car at Spa as a crucial factor that could help him turn around his fortunes – and hopefully his season.
A dismal period of underperformance has put Perez on the edge, with whispers of a replacement after F1’s summer break growing louder if the Mexican endures another poor weekend.
Hungary was another case of what might have been. A Q1 crash ruined his prospects – and further eroded his goodwill, despite a solid albeit unremarkable run from P16 to seventh on race day.
Nevertheless, Perez is hoping for a rebound in Belgium, based on several changes introduced on his car and more learnings derived from his race weekend at the Hungaroring.
“The Friday we were the fastest car and obviously on Sunday we were a bit compromised with the mistake I did in qualifying,” Perez told the media at Spa on Thursday.
“So I think there are a lot of positives to take from Hungary. Things that we learned, that we were doing better.
“Here we’re going to be on a bit of a different spec [to Verstappen], but, I really hope that that’s a building momentum to the things that we were doing.
“We were able to find a couple of things that were just out of sync that potentially can transform our season in the coming races.”
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Perez also alluded to a specific set-up change tested in Red Bull’s simulator that he’ll test in FP1 on Friday at Spa, weather permitting, that should help improve his overall feel and sensitivity for the RB20’s package.
“It’s definitely been peakier and harder,” he admitted. “We are changing as well for this weekend.
“We’re doing another change that hopefully will make me feel the car a little bit better. We’ll try that in FP1 and we’ll see.
“Something cannot go too much into detail, but it’s something to improve the feeling with the car.
“If it works, great, but if not, I think we already did really good steps forward in Hungary.
“I’ve tried that in the sim. It felt positive. It had my feeling with the car, so I really hope that it translates well to the track. We’ll see.
“The weather is not looking great, so probably we don’t get much running, but we’ll see.”
Perez suggested the existence of a causal relationship between Red Bull’s updates and adjustments and his difficulties in getting on top of his car, highlighting changes that have narrowed the RB20’s optimal window of performance.
“At the moment, I feel like there has been something that we have introduced in a few of the weekends,” he explained.
“Whether it’s with an upgrade or with setup or with the tyres. These cars are so sensitive that has made this window a lot smaller.
“Like I said, there will be teams that will be in a similar situation to us.
“There are teams that have been in this situation, but Red Bull is obviously a lot more noticeable, but it’s okay. I think the focus is over there.”
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