Red Bull were surprised by the ease with which they swept to a one-two finish in the opening race of the new season, said Sergio Perez.
Having qualified fifth for yesterday’s race, Perez rose to second place with little difficulty, passing both Ferraris and George Russell’s Mercedes on the way.
“Today was a very nice surprise,” admitted Perez, who finished 22 seconds behind race-winning team mate Max Verstappen. “We were expecting definitely the people around us to be a lot stronger.”
However he expects to see a closer fight with the team’s rivals at tracks where tyre degradation is not as high as it is on the abrasive Bahrain International Circuit.
“This is probably the worst place for degradation. So I think the better it is, the closer you will get. Jeddah will be a very different challenge, it will be interesting to see where we are there.”
Perez said his efforts to catch Verstappen were compromised by the degradation he suffered towards the end of the race having made his first pit stops early while trying to get ahead of Carlos Sainz Jnr.
“It was just about managing, because he obviously pushed us to stop early and we just stopped quite early, actually. It was going to be a very long stint, so we managed to progressively build a gap, keep that gap between us consistent and I think it worked well.
“We had a few other issues with the car towards the end of the race that meant that our degradation was getting quite a lot worse towards the end of the race.”
The next race takes place at Jeddah Corniche Circuit, which has a less abrasive surface and far more high-speed corners than Bahrain. Perez, who won last year’s race at the track, forecasts another strong weekend for the team.
“I believe that the car will be strong there with the high-speed content,” he said. “So I think there should be another strong weekend for us.”
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2024 Bahrain Grand Prix
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