Sergio Perez says he is aiming to grow in performance throughout the 2024 season after he suffered a heavy mid-season slump in 2023.
The Red Bull driver only scored two of his team’s 21 grand prix victories during the 2023 season. His team mate Max Verstappen won the rest.
Both Perez’s wins came in the opening four rounds. After then he experienced a severe slump in form during which he regularly failed to reach Q3. Over the final eight grand prix he finished on the podium only once.
Speaking to media including RaceFans at the launch of the team’s new RB20 on Thursday, Perez said he will learn from what happened in 2023 and improve for this season.
“I feel fully fresh,” he said. “Obviously, with the learnings of last year, it’s very important that we learn what went wrong, learn from our mistakes. I think we understood a lot of things. It’s my fourth year with Red Bull and I will expect to be at my best for this year.”
Perez has an important year ahead of him as his contract at Red Bull is up for renewal at the end of the year. Having shown an improvement in form over the final rounds of last season, Perez says his goal for 2024 is to “maximise every single opportunity” he has.
“I want to get a really strong base early on and just be able to carry that through the whole season, to be able to develop through the season,” he said.
Perez said he made his late season breakthrough by “understanding the difficult races, why they were so difficult. The directions we were taking with the car, how we were overcompensating things and not necessarily making the car better. I think from all of that, we managed to learn a bit.”
Red Bull’s RB19 was the most dominant car in Formula 1 history, but the world champions unveiled a successor they described as “aggressive” in design for the new season. Perez said he is encouraged that Red Bull have not played it safe with their 2024 car.
“I think it just shows the hunger that there is in this team,” he said. “We had such a dominant car last year that you wouldn’t imagine us changing the concept as much. I think it’s really brave from Red Bull to do that.”
“With the changes we’ve done to the car, it’s all about improving and learning with the car, growing with the car,” he said. “It’s a long season – it doesn’t really matter where you start in Bahrain, it’s where you finish in Abu Dhabi. So it’s a massive season that it’s just important to have that progression….
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…