Perez: I will just get stronger with Red Bull

Since Max Verstappen emerged into the powerhouse he has become in F1, Red Bull were at a loss regarding his teammate. Internally, they tried Pierre Gasly and then Alex Albon in the sister car but to no avail. Max destroyed them.

With few apparent options left within their own camp, Red Bull turned to Perez with the thinking that he would be a better bet, not only was his reputation sky-high at the end of last year, he also had a reputation of bringing it home in races of high attrition, while his tyre management is hailed as an art form.

After 11 races with the Blues, it would be fair to say that the Mexican has ticked all the boxes but has not quite got full marks or flying colours. Although it has to be said, he has certainly well outperformed his predecessors.

Consider that after 11 races Perez has scored 104 points for Red Bull, one less than Albon scored all of last year with them. In 2019, Gasly was sacked after 12 races with the senior team and 63 points on the scoresheet.

Hence Perez has proved to be a way better player for the team, with victory in Azerbaijan a thank you to those at Red Bull who believed and plucked him from what might have been F1 oblivion to give him a second chance.

But it has not been an easy ride.

Starting with the Red Bull RB16B, as Perez explained during an interview with Motorsport: “The way you extract the lap time in this car, the way you are fighting when you are in dirty air, compared to what I was used to; how you drive the races, is very different.

“Plus, it’s how you look after the tyres. Every car has different requirements of rim heating, and rim cooling, with very specific details as everything is linked to the tyres. It's just a different world, to be honest. It’s like I've changed category.”

It's been said for a while that modern F1 has two distinct pecking order groups with Mercedes the benchmark and Red Bull for the first time since 2014 in the penthouse suite. Other pedigreed teams that should be there but lost their way are Ferrari, McLaren and Renault (aka Alpine).

The Best of the Rest are Formula 1.5, which this season happens to include the abovementioned three with Merc and the Bulls ahead. But the Red Bull has not been plug-and-play.

For a driver never accustomed to being in a team with a race-winning car every race Sunday, Perez explained the difference: “It's a massive opportunity but I'm also aware that I have changed a lot the philosophy. I went from one team to a very different team in terms of how the car achieved the lap time,.

"It's been harder than expected, changing teams, you know, especially coming to a team that is already fighting for the championship.

“It's great to be in such a team but, at the same time, it's difficult because you don't have that adaptation that when you are fighting for the championship you're fully engaged with the car. I haven't had a chance to do that yet.

“I'm just learning a lot, you know, from the car, and from the team. I came to a very different team philosophy, engine and car, so I’m just getting on with it and, with time and just improving, things are getting better.

“But it is not an easy process and still it's an ongoing process. Coming into a new structure, a structure like Red Bull, it's very big, and it's not easy to find your feet but it's getting there," said. Perez.

However, not helping his cause is the fact that in Verstappen he has one of the finest drivers of this generation in the garage next to him, the Dutchman not shy to obliterate teammates and has turned Red Bull into his team, with the 'other guy' in the other car his wingman at best.

While, on any race weekend, Max gets into the zone from the moment he hits the track in FP1, Perez has to dial himself in and is invariably well off the pace (even) up to Q2, with a tendency to peak in Q3 and take it from there in the race.

Quick maths suggests that Perez needs to find half a second in each session to be anywhere near Verstappen's normal delivery let alone when Max is... at his max!

Perez explained: “I'm still needing a lot of time when we go to a new circuit. I take the whole Friday to be there in qualifying, and that is just chipping away through qualifying. Then it's just too late when you have such a deficit through Friday. Eventually, I get there, but it just takes me too much time to get on top of that.”

As for the differences between the RB16B and the Racing Point RP20 (aka Pink Mercedes), he said: "I'd say it's just a faster car, but the way you extract the lap time is very different.

"At the end of the day, all F1 cars are very close together, but it's just the way you extract the maximum lap time from each car that is very different. And I am with a car that is very different.

“I find that with the Red Bull, you have a very narrow window, where it operates. It is very important to stay in that window because if you go out of it, it might feel a bit more comfortable but it’s not necessarily a faster car. So I think it's a lot of me adapting to the car.”

“It is just growing that knowledge together, and it will become very natural. At the moment is not natural yet, but it will get there. I assume that already this year, in the second half of the season, I will be there and we will be pretty strong.

“I will just get stronger and we as a team are going to get stronger," predicted 31-year-old Perez, a veteran of 202 Grand Prix starts.