After he was eliminated at the season opener in Bahrain in the second quarter, Perez made up his best starting position of all time in Imola through his team-mate Max Verstappen in the qualification.
While Perez was hired to get closer to Verstappen, Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko says the team never expected him to do so well this quickly after the troubles he faced in Bahrain.
“Perez ‘improvement was incredible,” Marko told Sky Germany. “We are of course very pleased that he is so strong in his second qualifying. And Perez will start on the soft tires, Max and [Lewis] Hamilton on agent. That can be decisive on this relatively long straight. “
In an interview with ORF, Marko later added: “His qualifying performance here is really surprising. The racing speed that we know; He has already proven that in Bahrain. But this increase was a bit unexpected, but all the more gratifying. “
Perez will start on Softs for Sunday’s race after driving the tire compound in Q2 and not the medium team-mate Verstappen chose.
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Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing and Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing in Parc Ferme
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Marko stated that the team didn’t want to take any chances this time after Perez was knocked out in Q2 in Bahrain while trying to get his way on media.
“It was clear that we would need him in Q3,” he said. “In order for that to happen, we wanted him to do as many tests as possible on the tires.
“So in the second quarter we said, okay, we’ll do that here too. But it’s also very good for the strategy if we have two different tires with us at the front. “
Red Bull will have a strategic advantage over Mercedes for the race as both cars are capable of challenging Hamilton’s only Mercedes, with Valtteri Bottas only finishing eighth.
Given the way Mercedes was able to use two cars in Bahrain to beat Verstappen, Marko is optimistic about the options for Sunday.
“The strategy was forced upon us [in Bahrain]. We weren’t quick enough in the first stint because of our differential problems, “he said.
“They did a classic undercut, and since we didn’t have Perez around, we were at the mercy of it. We could no longer act, we could only react. When the beginning [at Imola] is doing reasonably well, we should have two cars up front against one from Mercedes. Then we will use this position aggressively. “
He added, “I think it’s going to be very, very close. We have two cars [way out in front]. There are quite a few cars between us and Bottas. I hope he doesn’t move forward anytime soon. So it should be an advantage for us. “
The post Perez’s progress “unbelievable” in Imola’s qualifying first appeared on monter-une-startup.
