Sergio Perez finished third at last Friday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Although the Red Bull driver was hoping to make some progress, he wasn’t entirely satisfied. Especially as he began to regain his confidence little by little.

The cancellation of the Chinese Grand Prix has put the premier class on hold for more than three weeks. As the race weekend in Azerbaijan was a sprint race weekend, the drivers were ready to get used to and qualify with just one free practice session after this spring break. Although Perez had a somewhat difficult race weekend in Australia, he managed to qualify in P3 for Sunday’s race on the streets of Baku. Still, according to the Red Bull driver, a better result could have been possible. During the press conference, he explained what went wrong. “I think I lost more than a tenth in Turn 3. I went too deep. Yeah, usually with a lot of corners, because I didn’t put in a good lap.”

“Turn 7 is always a bit tricky if you don’t take a corner like Turn 6 right. You have that combination in Turn 5 and Turn 6,” he continued. “Overall, I think not A clean lap was used. I definitely think I had more speed than I have today [vrijdag] I showed up, but I’m still in the struggle. With this tough qualifying, I think it’s important to make sure we’re in good shape for Sunday with the limited time we have to prepare for qualifying.”

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Restore self-confidence

Although the qualifying result wasn’t what Perez had hoped for, the Mexican knows it’s a big step up from qualifying in Australia. In Melbourne, Perez crashed during Q1 and was forced to start the race from the back of the grid. “Being in P3 is much better than not even being in Q1.” Asked if the Red Bull driver was happy with the car, he replied: “I think I’m getting my confidence back. What happened in Melbourne affected my confidence a little bit if I’m honest. Especially because we’ve had three weeks. You go straight into qualifying after the break. Braking here, confident. Being and I think I’m on track,” said the 33-year-old driver.