Perez eager to improve his performance after factory visit
Red Bull driver Sergio Perez is eager to bounce back from a difficult Miami Grand Prix where he only finished fourth despite encouraging pace in the opening part of the weekend.
Perez appeared to display impressive speed in the last race in Florida, but his pace faded as the weekend reached its culmination. The Mexican was quite close to his team-mate across the opening part of the event, but he ultimately finished down in P5 in the race only to get promoted to fourth due to a time penalty for Carlos Sainz.
With the field returning to Europe, Perez is adamant to bounce back to add to his tally of four podium finishes from the first six races in 2024.
"It’s nice to be back in Europe and particularly, Imola, after we missed this race last season. This location can throw challenging conditions at you when it comes to weather, that always makes things tricky, it can limit our time on track during practice and affect qualifying massively. Hopefully we get a dry weekend, the forecast looks promising at the moment for Friday and Saturday, being solid across those days should put us in a great position for Sunday.
"I have been at the factory this week, looking at how we can maximise set-up and improve on the performance in Miami. It’s about us making the right decisions across the weekend as a Team and we are working together to get back on the podium in Italy. This weekend, as a grid we will honour Ayrton Senna and it was important for me to be part of this by wearing the Forever Senna balaclava in his iconic yellow. He was an inspiration to us all growing up and was the reason many of us got into a kart and ended up here today," concluded Perez.
Having carried over his form from 2023, reigning champion Max Verstappen has been utterly dominant this year. However, he has been beaten in two races in the opening part of the season. The Dutchman started from pole in Melbourne, but a brake-related issue forced him to retire from the action on Lap 3.
The last race in Miami saw the Dutchman secure pole positions in the sprint shootout and the main qualifying and take sprint victory. He displayed encouraging pace in the race itself as well, but a safety car period helped McLaren's Lando Norris take over the lead, and with Verstappen being on used tyres, he was unable to fight his way back to the front.
Speaking of this weekend's race, the three-time world champion said: "Imola is always an iconic track to race at and we are excited to be back again after it was cancelled last year. We have had some great Team results here and it is always interesting to race at a really old school track like this, as it is very technical, with some complex combinations of corners and braking zones.
"The Team in Milton Keynes and trackside have all been working really hard and I have been back at the factory this week working on the sim. It’s nice to be back racing in Europe again too, so we are looking forward to seeing what the weekend brings."
